Wednesday May 15: Hollywood Fl !!!!!

Leaving the West End

Monday morning we left the  West End Bahamas at 6 am. The sun was not up yet but it was plenty light enough to go.

Breakfast on the way as we wanted to get a good start of what we thought would be a 70 mile, 10 hour trip to Lake Worth.

The wave prediction was to be 1 foot on NOAA, 2 foot on other sites. We choose to believe the 1 foot :-)

As we started out, the waves were very confused - they just didn't know which way to go! I lost my cup of coffee after about 1 minute out.  The stools fell over about 10 minutes out.

This just didn't seem right but might as well continue at least for a while to see how it settled. Two boats in the marina left after we did.

So definitely 2 foot waves with the occasional 3 and 4 foot but not really too bad. The winds were from the SW so not broadside which is THE WORST!!

Finally by the time we were halfway the sun was out and the waves had settled to a consistent 1 1/2 to 2 feet with an occasional set of 3 larger swells coming from a slightly more westerly direction.

There were even naps on the flybridge :-)

And then came the challenging part of this trip. We were only 14 miles out of the Lake Worth inlet (so 2 hours for us) when the storms came rolling off of the coast. I mean lightening, rain, wind. We went south for a while just holding our position trying to figure out the best way to go. Impossible to outrun of course (we tried that once on Lake Michigan :-) ).

Finally we headed in between two of the darkest areas toward a lighter part of the sky - still in general headed west. And then we ran into the worst rain/wind we have ever been in in the 10 years that we have traveled almost 25,000 miles on this boat. It lasted only maybe 10 minutes and we came through with canvas still intact!!!

In the meantime, in the worst of the storm, the GPS lost connections with it's satellites! It was one of those moments where you think REALLY??? Do we need this??? Fortunately we do have a backup on the computer so Steve went down and got that going while I tried to reset or reboot the GPS. I just kept heading West as we knew the shore was that direction. And to think that I considered removing that compass from the flybridge!! Who ever used it anymore :-)

And the rains just kept coming. Couldn't hardly make out the building that we know are there :-)

Anyway a long story a bit shorter: we eventually found the inlet we were looking for (Lake Worth is a Class A inlet - the best kind) and making use of the charts still available on the GPS found an anchorage about 15 minutes inside the inlet.

What a last two hours .... by the time we were in and anchored it was 6:30. Way past docktail time!!!

So all's well that ends well. We'traveled the 50 miles to Hollywood today and will be here until Monday. Storm/rain around most days so we'll enjoy our time just staying put for now. Maybe rent a car for a few days - I feel a need for some good Chinese :-)