Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Lake Worth

Oh, we love FL...80 today.  Ok, we had showers, but that's OK!
We left Vero Beach on Tuesday morning, into dense fog, to our dismay. We don't like fog.  But, with our trusty GPS and radar, we were fine.


After struggling with the dense fog, we decided to go "outside" at the Ft. Pierce Inlet, a smart decision.  No bridges, no fog, and no speeding motor boats to pass us or slow sailboats for us to pass.  But you can't avoid realizing the population density ashore. (look at that blue water!)



We arrived in Lake Worth just as a thunderstorm hit. Thank goodness Luke did an excellent job of finding an anchorage spot pronto.  We dumped the anchor and waited out the storm.  All went well.  Just after the storm, we watched an amazing, sleek, beautiful racing sailboat drift into the inlet.  Rambler.  http://www.charterworld.com/news/2011-les-voiles-de-st-barth-sailing-yacht-vesperteam-moneypenny-sy-rambler-100-headline  Wow, we've read about these racing boats but not seen them locally.



We were treated to a nice sunset.



Today we pulled up the anchor and took at slip at the local municipal marina.  We went to the Customs Border Patrol folks and got our "Local Boater Option" certificates.  Basically, we are recoginized as ok folks and get a quick pass-through when we return to FL from the Bahamas.

En route to the Customs House,  we realized that Lake Worth must have something special to offer these massive racing sailboats.  In addition to the Rambler (now on a lift, on land, and having something or another done to her), we also saw the Beau Gueste.  http://yachtpals.com/beau-geste-mackinac-9114



If you've ever watched one of those extreme sailing races, you have seen the sailboats heel over waaaay far into the water.  Wonder why they don't go under?  (usually....). The answer is in the photo above, but more obvious in this photo of the Geniune Risk...



Look at the bottom of the boat, then follow it down, down, down to the bulb shapped keel almost on the ground.  Our keel is 5.5 ft from the bottom of Latitudes; this one is more like 15 ft down.  Absolute balance!

There are a lot of boats at the marina and more birds.  LOTS of birds.  A flock flew over the boat and instead of the usual you-know-what that we expected, we ended up with black speckles of bird feathers/down allll over the boat. Yuck.  This poor guy in front of us has an unwelcome resident - a night heron seems to have made his home here.  It was a mess....



I got laundry done and Luke cleaned filters, etc.  Tomorrow looks good for another outside run (70 miles) to Miami.  If the weather holds as predicted, we will get diesel & water, nap until 2 a.m.-ish, and leave for a run over to Bimini on Friday morning.  We need to get there before low tide, as the channel into Bimini is shallow. The Bahamas at last with some luck!

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