Friday-Sunday 17-19 Dec, Anchored Lake Worth FL, cruising day 20-22: Lazing in Lake worth, delivering dive gear, doing laundry, making new bimini side shades.
These last days all kind of merge into one on Cloudy Bay as we first wait to hand over the Hookha dive system we sold, and then wait on weather to continue south. The wind has been reasonably strong from the SE, meaning it would be an upwind sail to our next destination, Fort Lauderdale. Then there is a gap when it’s calm on Monday, followed by a massive storm (big, for wintertime Florida) bringing very strong west winds and rain on Tuesday and into Wednesday.
So we could make the jump to Lauderdale Monday, but that would mean needing to find a safe anchoring spot just hours before the storm. Given anchoring is not easy in Lauderdale, we looked at mooring options. Pier 66 comes in at $200 a day and the place we would really like to moor, right in the heart of town, on the North River, is full and with a waitlist until February. Anchoring options are: Lake Sylvie (a perfect little lake) but we need a high tide to get in and then it could be full; further north in Las Olas anchorage, but it is in the strong current; South Lake in Hollywood, but last time there we hit a submerged object, which took the tip of the rudder off!
So right now, our perfect spot in the beautiful surroundings of Lake Worth looks like the place to stay and ride out the storm, then move on Wednesday to meet our friends on SY Gale in Fort Lauderdale. We had hoped to be well along the Florida Keys by Christmas, but what’s a couple of days delay when cruising, eh?
Our various sailing legs southbound from the Chesapeake have felt rather relentless. Now is a good time for a break, relax and prepare the boat for “heat mode”.
The bimini is now up and the solar is wired-in and already pumping power into the batteries. For a whole day, I couldn’t stop looking at the electrical readouts. It’s a good feeling seeing the battery % rising, for free, from natural energy. Our 2 permanent hard solar panels on the pushpit rail are 120watts each. And now that we add 6 x 110w panels on the bimini we have a total of 900watts (36amps @25vdc) in perfect conditions (full midday sun ray hitting the panels at an exact 90 degree angle and zero shadowing). Of course, real conditions are never perfect, so to see 12-15 amps is very reasonable.
And while we have this power, water tanks full and good drying conditions, we do the laundry. Mostly cleaning all our cold weather clothes and bedding, ready to stow away for another year. Our little Candy washing machine takes 3.5Kg (half a normal household machine load) but it runs with low power-draw off the inverter and cleans significantly better than any 20-minute cycle laundromat machine. Our only challenge with it is to get it to spin properly, at full RPMs. It sits there trying to get the load balanced for several minutes before it finally achieves full speed. And sometimes it never does, leaving us with dripping-wet washing to sort out. We think this issue is due to the boat’s movement. But this time, on the calm lake waters, we manage good spin drying for each of the 5 wash-loads. And with the lifelines all thoroughly rinsed of salt, it all dries in no time.
With the laundry all billowing in the wind, we joke that the Palm Beach police are probably getting called right now, taking complaints about our boat covered in washing! In most fancy suburbs of the USA, hanging-out laundry in public view is not allowed. Especially those “small” items! When I lived in Houston, we were often told off for things like having a tatty basketball net, grass too long, not putting our cars away in the garage when not in use. Crazy, but true!
With the bimini up, it’s time for a little sewing project. When locked-down in Cayman we had made side and rear shades for the bimini to shade the cockpit when the sun is low. And we made them out of Phifertext mesh which should give 50% UV reduction, but still have visibility through the shade and allows breeze to pass. But Oana is now having real trouble being in any glare of the sun and these shades don’t cut it. Plus, the Phifertext is a stiff mesh making it difficult to stow.
So with the same design, I now sew new shades made of TopNotch material from Sailrite. It is a lightweight canvas with 100% UV protection. It takes me a full and very sweaty day to complete them and by the end of it I swear to Oana “there will be no more BIG sewing projects inside the boat!” Our saloon is pretty spacious, but trying to pattern large items like these, which are each 4.5m x 1.5m, is really challenging. And while I like this TopNotch material, one side of it has a finish that is slightly sticky to the touch. So every time I laid it out flat, the second I stood on it, it would lift up with my feet, producing a lot of profanities!
On Friday I delivered the Hookha dive system to its new owners and received some nice crisp $100 bills in return. I hope they are not fake money! It’s really good to get rid of it as it was taking up a huge space in the aft locker. In fact, it’s always good to get things off the boat that you no longer need. In our past working life, we moved home and country every 2 years. While there were painful sides to this moving process, it did mean a regular and healthy cleansing of all material items, because we always had to squeeze everything we owned into one shipping container. Now, 6 years into Cloudy Bay, we have had no such systematic sort-outs and Cloudy Bay’s waterline is starting to feel the pressure! I am certain all long-term cruising people have exactly the same issue.