We stayed at the Fort Pierce City Marina for the first time. I have to say that I prefer it over Harbour Town Marina for may reasons. Nicer docks (floating vs fixed), nicer laundry with better machines and better shower facilities. It is also in “downtown” Fort Pierce with its wonderful shops, restaurants and the Farmers Market on Wednesdays & Saturdays. It is too far to walk to the grocery though!
Pelican by Harbour Town Marina
We spent some time with Pete & Jane and that is always fun. After 2 days in the marina it was time to go over to the anchorage in Faber Cove across from the marina.
As we pulled out an alarm went off. I won’t go into details but we had to order up a new alternator. Since we could not charge the batteries by running the engine we were dependent on the solar panels & wind generator. The only problem was that it was cloudy with little wind! Pete brought us the new alternator & took us to have the old one tested. To our surprise there was nothing wrong with it. The man said even the brushes looked brand new. If that was the case…. What was the problem???? Rob started checking all possibilities and found a wire that had lost its protective coating. This was due to the excessive vibrations we have had with the new Beta. He managed to fix it without having to buy a whole new wiring harness but now we are the proud owners of a $400.00 alternator we do not need! We only hope that we are able to cruise long enough that it will be needed!
We finally got all of that sorted out & decided to head down towards Lake Worth and possibly West Palm Beach too. We went towards Hobe Sound & were called on the VHF by Rich on Chris-Lea who we had met last summer at Cobb’s Marina. It was great to see him & catch up.
Lighthouse @ Jupiter Inlet Rich on Chris-Lea
We got to see Pete one more time as he brought our mail down to Lake Worth (getting the mail is a whole other story! geeezze) and we had a nice lunch at Duffy’s, picked up that last minute stuff at Publix, Trader’s & Carmines and moved the next afternoon down to the Lake Worth Inlet.
We decided to move late in the afternoon and as we were preparing to drop the hook the bottom fell out! We got the dink emptied out, the motor onboard and the dink on deck and decided to leave at first light.
We normally will cross overnight and continue on to either Great Sale or Crab Cays. During Hurricane Joaquin a loaded containership, El Faro, sunk off of Long Island in the Bahamas and just a week or so prior an ocean tug/barge lost 25 containers overboard. These containers do not always sink. They may hover just a few feet under the water making them extremely hard to see. In fact, there were jugs of Tide laundry soap, vacuum sealed bags of coffee, 3 roll packages of paper towels and lots & lots of Capri Sun fruit drinks being picked up by many boats. Of course all we saw were the paper towels and once they are soaked in salt water….well, no. However, given the heightened risk of containers we decided to cross in daylight as when it would get dark we should be on the banks and out of the ‘drift’ of the containers.
It was a fabulous crossing! We actually were able to turn the engine off and sail part of the time. The stars were out and the seas were low. Fantastic! Rob Darling, you should have called us back – it would have been a perfect crossing for you.
We passed Great Sale Cay bout 3am and had already made the decision to carry on to Green Turtle where our good friends Bobby & Francie of Barefootin’ were. We arrived about 2:30pm and they took us to shore to clear in so we did not have to mess with our dink.
There was a cold front on the way and from all accounts it would be strong so we all decided to transit “The Whale” the next day. The Barefootin’s went on to Hope Town while we decided to stop at Great Guana cay for our usual stop at Nippers. It was a great time as usual but they have really raised the prices! A “Nipper” was $7.00 last year but is now $10.00! Even the Kalik’s have gone from $5.00 to $6.50. Probably won’t be having lunch there again any time soon!
Friday the 18th brought us into Marsh Harbour where we have not yet gotten off the boat. Its very windy. We were putting in 11+ amps with our wind generator this morning! We will go to town tomorrow to pick up last minute items for Christmas dinner. Our plans are to head to Hope Town on Wed. 12/23 and have Christmas dinner with the Barefootin’s.
May each & everyone of you have a safe and blessed Christmas Day and year ahead. God has truly blessed us all and in our day to day lives it is easy to lose sight of His grace, His glory and His mercy. Let us also remember that Christmas is not about the tree, gifts, food and parties but is truly about the birth of Jesus Christ our Savior.
Merry Christmas to all and in the word of Tiny Tim…… “God bless us every one”"!” Holly