Fort Pierce City Marina was a great place to stay for a couple of days. It was so nice to be at a dock for a change - there is laundry facilities, showers and Lise was able to drive us to the grocery store before their car was moved to the storage area.
We also purchased some rapid Covid tests just in case anyone is feeling ill, we can test and isolate immediately - hoping it won’t happen though.
There sure are some big boats in Florida - this one was parked on the same pier as us:
On December 27th we celebrated the second birthday of these two on a FaceTime call:
We also celebrated our Millar Family Christmas with a zoom call - it was supposed to be in person but actually we get to see more family this way. We heard it is really cold in Alberta and BC!
On December 28th we left Fort Pierce with “Gaya” at 7:00 am to allow enough time for our next destination. Good thing too because we had a couple of incidents that slowed us. First off, Gaya’s engine alarm went off so they had to stop to figure out what was going on. We circled back and passed them our laser temperature gun so they could check the engine temperature. We continued on our way while Steve resolved the problem and soon they were only 30 minutes behind us. Then as we approached the Palm Beach area, the small boat traffic was crazy. The wake was so intense, that our dingy flipped sideways on the davits and 2 full cans of gas went overboard. We turned around and luckily one of the small boats stopped and retrieved the cans from the water and passed them over - thank you guys!
Eventually our two boats were together and we pulled into a huge anchorage at Lake Worth near West Palm Beach. This is known as a “staging” area for boats waiting for a weather window to cross to the Bahamas.
This morning we watched a cruise ship enter the Lake Worth inlet. That’s the way we will go out.
Also this morning we went to shore to get Covid tests done. Once we get the negative results by email we have to upload these to a website in the Bahamas (along with our vaccine certificates), and they will email a Health visa which you must have to enter the country. However, once you get the Health visas, you have to depart within 3 days. A lot of planning and documents to prepare and fingers crossed that the weather cooperates, otherwise you have to start the whole process over again. I also had to call in to U.S. customs to let them know we had arrived here - they like to keep track of foreign registered boats, big and small. Gunter and Steve filled up the boats with the diesel jerry cans and took the dingys to a nearby marina to refill the cans.
Our plan is to leave for the Bahamas tomorrow or Friday, depending on when we get approval. In the meantime we have another family zoom call this afternoon to celebrate my mother’s 90th birthday - hoping I have enough data on my phone…..
Next post should be from the Bahamas!
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