On the hook on Lake Worth

We’re currently anchored out just outside the Old Port Cove Marina on Lake Worth in North Palm Beach, FL.  We left the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, running down the outside. It was a rough trip with bumpy head seas, bigger than predicted. And because I’d messed up my eyes with the patch (last post) I ended up getting pretty sea sick. (I was preoccupied with my eyes and didn’t take any other meds.) So Martin had to drive the boat the whole time while I laid down and concentrated on not throwing up.  The only “uh ho” moment was when we were almost to our anchorage, taking a turn within the channel markers, thank you(!),and ran hard aground. We knew what to do but it still took us almost 10 minutes to get ourselves free.  We’re so thankful for that time we were with Jim when Blossom decided to run herself aground (silver lining in everything!) It was a great lesson in both how not to get panicked and how to get off a sand bank.  And so we arrived just as the sun was setting and we’re still here, enjoying the anchorage, a week later!

We love where we’re anchored and though there are many boats across the way in the anchorage, we’re alone nestled between two marinas.  We had an awesome Thanksgiving dinner aboard and though cool (for Florida) we were able to enjoy our dinner on the cockpit.

Thanksgiving Dinner

Maybe it’s the cooler weather, or the fact that I’ve not been eating home cooked food much for the past month or more, but I’ve gotten very into cooking. Martin normally does most of the dinner cooking but I’ve taken over for the past week. (Though Mart did 90% of the holiday meal, I just made my favorite, the stuffing). I chose several recipes and provisioned for them before we left. Here’s a poached pear spice cake I made, I think it looks pretty cool, and Martin looks fairly inebriated :)

Poached Pear Spice Cake

We’ve spent our days aboard, not going to shore at all. There are few places to get ashore by tender so we’ve been home bodies, relaxing, cooking and doing chores.  I figured out how to arrange the salon so I can do my work out videos and pulled out my “stepper” – trying to keep moving! I also organized my quilt room cupboards, set up my machines and am finally back to quilting.  I hope to finish a holiday quilt that I started last year in time to show it off in the boat.

I also decked Blossom out for the holidays. We have a small hook in the cockpit where I can hang a small something. Here was our fall and now, holiday decorations:

Fall

Christmas

And our Christmas Tree!

Our friends Sean & Louise finished their first 3 day passage and arrived in Jacksonville, FL today. We’re so happy that they had a weather window to get them to Florida. It’s blowing like crazy along the coast of Florida for at least another week but now that they’re here, they can continue south down the inside and stop and visit friends along the way. 

We plan to stay at anchor for another couple days and then go to Old Port Cove Marina if they can fit us in. Seems several boats in the marina are stuck because of the bad (windy) weather. If they can’t take us, we’ll start heading south. We’d like to stop for a couple nights in Del Ray if we can find a marina there to visit friends and then will head to Ft. Lauderdale.

We seem to have some kind of a guest aboard Blossom as well. Ever since our first night here we've been hearing strange noises coming from the hull at dusk. It lasts about an hour or two. Every night it moves, sometimes forward and sometimes aft. Port and starboard sides. Sometimes one, and sometimes more. It sounds like a large bull frog, under water. If anyone has any idea what this could be, I would love to know!  My best guess is that it's a fish, nestled in a through hull for the night that sings itself to sleep. I'm open to other suggestions.

Boat Business:

We’ve used our time at anchor to hone in our power management. We’ve come to find that we need to run the generator about 5-6 hours a day. We turn it on in the morning for a few hours and then again in the evening while cooking dinner.  This maintains hot water in the tank and keeps our batteries topped up. While the generator is running we can use the clothes dryer, cooktop and vacuum.  We can use everything else during the day without worry. We use the 20k more often because of the draw our batteries take to recharge and the random/spiking use by the water heater. We need to turn off the battery charger or the water heater if we want to cook with the 9k generator running.

Here are some of the small things we’ve attended to…

• Programmed the tv remote in the master stateroom so only takes one (and not 3) to operate!
• Polished the porthole rims inside the boat and the cockpit table legs. They get rusty looking from salt water and a good polishing spiffs them up as well as protects the metal.
• Fixed the slide on the cockpit table.
• Martin built a pump to charge up our AC loop.

Last Minute Update: I went down to the engine room to try to record our "frog" and heard the bilge pump go off.  Looks like we have a salt water leak! We were able to trace it to wing engine shaft seal. It’s a slow dripping leak but disconcerting just the same (to me anyway, I’m the worry wart.)  That’ll be top of the list for tomorrow!

In the excitement of finding water in the bilge I forgot to make a recording. I'll try again tomorrow.