Wind from the north today but not strong. A little cooler but sunny. We spent part of the morning reading email. Nautilus moves to Galliot Cut today. They are having a lovely time. We also discussed route planning with Liz and Pete. They were the first cruisers to help us on our way when we met them at Herrington Harbor last summer. Liz sent us an email with all of her favorite places icluding places with water, propane and even great bread.
We want to get to the Bahamas as soon as possible. If we go further south, there are no marinas, and crowded anchorages. We would have to go outside at least from Ft. Lauderdale to Miami because of a bridge. We would rather go outside from here to Miami but would have to wait for a good weather opportunity to go south.
We could cross to the Bahamas from here. Liz and Pete did this and went from Lake worth to West End in the Abacos. From there we could make our way to the Exumas. They found West End to be an easy harbor. We love the Naitilus route but are worried about continuing south in Florida.
We decided to increase our options by driving to Miami tomorrow to pick up our solar generator. That way we do not have to sail to Miami if a good opportunity presents itself for a crossing from here.
In the afternoon, we rented bikes and rode around the waterways across the bridge and to the beach. We had seen another Tayana in our anchorage and the boat was on the app, noforeignland, as “no name Tayana.” Noforeignland is a neat app that Brandi from Fishes showed me. It is free or you can pay to be a contributor. Boaters can place their boat in a gps location and their little boat icon and name will show up on the chart of the area. It has marinas, dinghy docks, bridges and anchorages also on the chart. It has symbols for playgrounds, groceries and laundry too. In addition, boaters can rate and review places and can join groups, like kid boats or people working from boats . Many use it in other countries.
We met the Ike, at the dinghy dock. He hasn’t put a name on his boat yet hence, “no name Tayana”. We talked Tayanas for awhile. He lives on the boat and is planning to stay here for a bit. Maybe a happy hour with Ike is in our future. He was taking an outing to the beach on an electric scooter.
We rode past some impressive homes and trees. We then rode by the Breakers resort and golf course. They have a private beach but there is a public beach access about a block down. The beach and water were beautiful for a swim on New Year’s Day.
We biked back over the Flagler Memorial Bridge and returned our bikes. We then went to Bradley’s where we met up with Laci and Mike from Russamee. Mike gave us some more ideas for the passage from West End to the Exumas. Laci is a wealth of knowledge about boat life and a very warm and bright person. She bakes fresh bread on her boat and will share the recipe. We talked about Haiti. They are still trying to find a place to load their cargo. I feel Laci will be able to convince the marina to let them dock there a few hours for loading. They are also waiting for boat parts.