Sunday May 11: Weary But Back - Palm Beach

Well, it wasn't the plan for today but as you know plans are made only to be changed!

It was overcast - winds were calmer than the past few days. Has a weather window opened for us today?

Boats on either side were getting ready to shove off. Quick check of the weather showed a forecast of 3 foot waves all the way from here to the Lake Worth Inlet - a change from yesterday that showed 3 - 6 feet waves near the coast.

We talked to the small boat (31 foot Sea Ray) that left yesterday and came back within 20 minutes. He agreed to give us a call on the radio when he was out of the harbor.

Of course mind you he can travel 35 mph so the trip becomes just a two hour ride for him!

But we saw no white caps with the binoculars - his call back was 3 to 4 swells. Good news for us so we also untied and took off.

I wasn't sure we were ever going to see the sign on the right :-)

It was a long 64 miles .... but we made it with no problems. Definitely one of those days when the rule is 2 hands on the boat at all times (and feet of course :-)  )

The winds were from the southeast as were the waves. We were traveling almost due west. So not the push we were looking for from the waves - actually what they did mostly was roll us around all over the place!

It is amazing to me the power of a 3 foot wave to shove this 9 ton boat around. The job of steering was a constant one as it was difficult to hold any kind of a heading.

The picture left shows the GPS when we were about 16 miles out of the inlet yet. It was nice seeing that we were truly getting closer!

The Palm Beach shoreline didn't start appearing until about 10 miles out - mostly due to the haze I'm guessing. We should have been able to see the high rises 20 miles away ... well, at least that's what the books all say :-)

I really like our little GPS - it makes it SO MUCH easier to navigate than just using paper charts like we did on Lake Erie back in the days!

FYI: a 3 foot ocean wave is NOTHING compared to a 3 foot Lake Erie wave! Give me the ocean waves anytime :-)

 A few cargo ships were spotted along the way - this one though was coming at a right angle to us.

Was I going to clear in time or not????

It wasn't an issue but for a while it was really hard to determine if I should continue on course or turn to slip behind him.

Not sure what this is though - Steve thought a natural gas tanker??

The large ship buoys at the Lake Worth Inlet were a welcome sight after  8 1/2 hours of being tossed around.

The saddest thing was that it was just to unstable for Steve to fish. He was hoping to catch a mahi-mahi while crossing over the gulf stream. So much for all of that rigged ballyhoo in our freezer for a month!!

Perhaps next time :-)

 Once in the inlet it wasn't hard to tell we were back in Florida :-) Party central on the shallow banks right off of the channel .....