December 26th

We spent several days in green turtle at Miss Blue Bees bar and Pineapples, enjoying the people and learning more about the island.  Kevin loves the Goombay Smash at Miss Blue Bees's and even brought a liter of it for the trip home.   I was talking with Miss Viola (Miss Emily's grand daughter), her daughter is also a massage therapist and would like to meet with me online and discuss essential oil products
Monday we move to Manjack Cay and meet the owners, Bill and Leslie.  Leslie and I spent several hours talking about bush medicine and she showed me all the native trees and plants they use for healing purposes.  Later in the day we did their nature hick to the atlantic side of the island and went to the beach, then did a dinghy ride throuh the creek that runs the middle of the island.  I would suggest this island to any and all cruisers , it was wonderful.
Wednesday went left early in the morning for Great Sail Cay and spent the night before heading to Mangrove Cay the next morning.
Thursday was off the Mangrove Cay waiting to cross back to the states.
Friday (Christmas day) we left at 0200 and set sail for Fort Pierce, the seas were 2-4 foot rollers with occasional 5 foot, winds were 6-10 knots out of the SE.  We made it to the inlet and anchored around 1700, we were tired, stinky and hungry.    Our friends Dave and Lisa, on board Scallywag were waiting for us in Ft. Pierce.  They came over for drinks and snacks.  Dave was introduced to a Goombay Smash and really liked them, so much he was calling them Gumby smashes at the end of the evening.
Saturday morning we left around 0730 to head home, up the ICW and Dave and Lisa left around 0400 to go on the outside up to port canaveral.  We arrive home around 1330 and went to the airport to clear immagration.

December 20th, 2015

We are anchored still in Green Turtle.  This morning Kevin spent time working on the Generator again.  He has narrowed the problem down to a faulty connection on the engine stop selonid with a corroided wire connection.  He has temporarliy fixed it, enough to use till we get home.  His second project today was Jarvus (our auto pilot), the on off nob came loss while making our crossing and he thought maybe the shaft was broke.  Once he took the front off he found the set screws had losen and the threads for the knob to connect the shaft were stripped so he was able to re connect and tighten the set screw so we can use it on our crossing back. This too will need to be replaced.

We have looked at the weather for cast and it looks like our only weather window to return will be Saturday the 26th, so we will be leaving Green Turtle Tuesday morning and start Island hoping back to Great Sail Cay by Christmas day and start our crossing that night.  If all goes as planned we will be state side by the evening of the 26th.

Today is Sunday and everything is closed, so we are doing cleaning and just hanging out, we may dighy in to town later this afternoon or not.  The winds have been blowing steady out of the NE at 25-30 knot for three days now and it should ease up by Tuesday.  Temprature has been about 77 the last few day, which has been very nice.  Well I must sign off for now.  Happy sailing and fair winds to all and to all a good night.

We Made it

We have made it to green turtle Cay.  My last two post would not send so this will be our update.  Im currently at Pineapples bar in Green Turtle boring their internet.  We had a great crossing and made it to Mangrove cay around 1930 on tuesday night, then Great sail cay on wednesday afternoon.  Thursday we motorsailed to Crab cay and then made the run to Green Turtle on Friday, anchoring around 1330.    The wweather has been in the mid 80's most of the week and we have been swimming .  A front came through today dropping the tempature to 73.
There is a funeral in town today so we are hanging at the only open place for lunch and internet

Making Our Cross to the Bahamas

Tuesday December 15th 0700
We are just making our way out Lake Worth Inlet, the winds are 5 knots due E, waves are about 2-3 feet rollers.  Seafari left about an hour before us and we can just see them on the horizon.   Its a beautiful morning, with Captain Kev on first watch.
1200 we are about 2 hours from the outer bank of White Sand, just north of Memory Rock.  The winds have been about 10 knots out of the SE, waves have increased to about 4 feet, but still a great cross, we are motor sailing to the bank.  Once on the bank we hope to sail to Mangrove Cay and anchore for the night.

Holding for the weather

We are still anchored at West Palm and waiting for the weather to cooperate.  Our plan is to leave at day break tomorrow and make the cross, so this will be my last blog until we find a spot with internet service.   I will keep making my daily post and then submit them when we have service, so several may come at one time.  When you click on the link with facebook, just scroll to the bottom of the page and click the home button.  That will take you to the full blog.   So I'm signing off now and Merry Christmas to all.

Day 2 of our Adventures at Sea

Where to begin, I quess with a correction from yesterday.  We did have one set back last night after dinner.  Our generator would not start and Kevin was up till about 2200 hrs last night.  He has not completely figured out what happened, but some where between the selinoid and the starter something went wrong.   So there was no movie last night.
As for today, that is a different matter all togeather.  We pulled anchor around 0830 and started our run for West Palm Inlet, on the ICW (Inter Coastal Waterway) for you land lovers.  I believe Seafari was about 30-45 minutes behind us.  The morning was uneventful until we reached Jupiter inlet.  As for those who have made this trip, you know exactly what I mean.  The first two bridge heading south were fine, but then we reached Indian Town Bridge. AKA the Bridge tender from Hell.  Several years back we had a 3 hour wait at this same bridge.  Today the bridge tender said he would hold the bridge for us, then he proceeded to close it just as we were ready to start our approach throught and informed us we would have a half hour wait.  So we waited.  In the mean time we hear Seafari going throught the previous two bridges.  They were still a ways back when he started opening the bridge and said he would not wait for them. SOOOO, we took our sweet time at a fast 2 knots to get throught the bridge.  By the time we got throught there was not enough time for the bridge tender to lower on Seafari.  As you maybe asking your self what did the tender do, well he yelled at us to go faster and we just kept inching along, then gave it full throutle as we got clear of the bridge.  It was a sweet revenge.
We have made it to our anchorage, just south of Peanut Island around 1530.  The weather report is still showing very high winds and seas for tomorrow, so we will just stay here and rest up, prepare and stow for a offshore cross and leave very early Tuesday morning.  I have added a few picture for todays run.

Day 1 of our adventure at sea

We are setting sail on board Serena Rose, with our neighbors Rich & Laura on board Seafari.  There was a wonderful bonvoyage party for us last night, compliments of our neighbor Ed.  The party lasted until about 11pm, when several people had to be escorted to their boats (due to large consumptions of rum and beer). Suprising enough we left around 0730 this morning, with Seafari about 20 minutes behind us. The winds finally picked up in the afternoon so we could motor sail from Vero Beach area.  The only exciting thing that happen today for us, was we scrapped the Wabasso bridge while going under it.  We are anchor'd just north of the Jensen beach causway.  Rich and Laura are anchored much closer to shore then us, since they only draw 4' and we draw 6.5'.  The winds are about 12-15 knots out of the ENE and will be slowly switching to the ESE tomorrow.   Time for dinner and a movie.  Will post again tomorrow night and let everyone know if we are heading to the Keys or the Bahamas.

Slight Delay in plans

Due to changes in the weather and the news of containers falling off a cargo ship and floating around where we are sailing. Several of our friends traveling down from St. Augustine have made reports of spotting containers in the water, so there will be no night crossing.  We will be taking our time on the inside to West Palm Beach and making a day crossing on Monday.   Since we are delaying our plans one day, everyone has decided to have a captains meeting/dock party friday night.

2 Days left till Bahamas 2015

Well everyone cross your fingers.  We are going to try for the Bahamas once again.   Our departure date is Friday (2 more day).  At this point weather conditions are looking favorable for a Saturday evening crossing.  I will try to post once we have started our cross before we get to far out of cell range.   We should be returning back around January 2nd.  Wish us luck and see you all on the flip side.   I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.