12/3/01 Ft. Pierce & Palm Beach

We left the Banana River on 11/27 and motored the 50 or so miles to Ft. Pierce uneventfully. Everything worked and we found a wonderful anchorage with just a few other boats. I cooked chicken on the grill and we had a peaceful evening at anchor under the stars and listening to "talk radio" and reading. Now this is the life!
We decided to get up early and try to push to Lake Worth/Palm Beach which was about 55 miles away and complicated by 8 opening bridges which always cause you to lose some time. We also had to negotiate the navigation of both the St. Lucie Inlet and Jupiter Inlet which were a bit tricky with confusing buoy systems which have changed since the last chart printing! Our cruising guide was most helpful in guiding us through some of the turns and we arrived in North Palm Beach at about 3:30 and dropped anchor in about 15 ft. of water in northern Lake Worth with about 50 other boats.
For those of you not acquainted with the micro-geography here...Lake Worth is not really a lake...it is an ocen inlet that stretches north and south behind Palm Beach and in front of the mainland. We anchored in the very northern section of Lake Worth within the town of North Palm Beach. There were boats from all over in the anchorage...Sweden, Scotland, Germany,  and lots of Canadian boats. Most are headed across to the Bahamas as we are and simply waiting for the right weather to attempt the crossing. The  Lake Worth inlet is a popular jumping off point because it is a very easy inlet to negotiate even in bad weather and because it is a straight shot of about 55 miles across to Grand Bahama from here.
We will attempt the crossing later this week weather permitting but we are enjoying Palm Beach in the meantime as everything a boater could want is within walking distance of the anchorage...West Marine, a Publix grocery store, good cheap restaurants (pizza & deli's like NY!!) as well as a major mall for our Christmas shopping.
We met up with my cousin David and wife Loris on Saturday night and had a great dinner at Tommy Bahamas and then walked around the newly "renovated" city center of West Palm Beach which was beautiful. It reminded me a lot of Baltimore's Inner Harbor. We even saw Atlanta's slugger Andrea Gallaraga walking down the street with his family. (Thanks Dave & Loris- It was great to see you and you two will be WONDERFUL parents!! All best wishes!!).
Now it is Monday and the electronics guys from Martek came over to the boat to check out the SSB transmit problem I've been having ever since Virginia. About an hour later the problem was discovered... in the original installation two wires had been reversed!! Aaaarrrrghhhh!!! Oh well...now it works and I'll feel a lot better crossing over knowing that my long distance radio calls can be heard... plus Jan got an extra day to hit Marshalls, TJMaxx and the mall!