Non-sticky Velcro
You know what happens to Velcro when it gets all clogged up with lint, how it doesn’t stick anymore? That must be what the cold weather has done for Vero “Velcro” Beach, at least for us. This place is as notorious for holding cruisers stationary as Georgetown “Chicken Harbor” is in the Bahamas. Not for us though; we’re heading on, and fast.
Today’s destination is Palm Beach where our intention is to stay the night at Lake Park Marina where Mark and Dawn keep their PDQ Whistler. Although we have yet to meet them, they emailed us and offered to host us for a night at their marina. How cool is that?
Marinas are a rare thing for us. We added up the number of times we have stayed at a marina since heading south and concluded that it has only been for a total of three nights: Oswego for 1 night, when we used them to un-step our mast and also to receive our generator shipment, Hop-O-Nose in the Hudson River for a night after we had them put our mast back up (we needed the time to re-rig ZTC) and Cape May at Utsch’s Marina for a night. That is us trying to be frugal.
The cold weather is supposed to break on Thursday and if the wind and waves look good, our plan is to head offshore and get as far south as possible. Although we could cross from Lake Worth Inlet (West Palm Beach) to West End Bahamas, I think we’ll stick with our original plan of crossing from Key Biscayne (near Miami) to Bimini. Of course, that’s more than a day or two away, so you never really know what’ll happen.
How long will it take you to cross? What is the distance? We missed you and Rebecca at the Brew Pub’s Christmas “Port and Stilton” party. But I know you both have been having some great parties too so I guess we can say we’re even. lol
Hey Mark. I’m sure you guys had a great time without us. 🙂
How long to cross? It is about 60 miles so at 6 knots, about 10 hours.
Your frugal-ness is impressive,I really like being plugged into shore power and heat. We still will get further south some time, but this still beats shovelling.
Take care
Jennifer, Al & Miss B
Shore power sure is nice. The electric heater is rockin’ in our berth right now.
Hi there and fair winds. I still haven’t found why you have an arctic cold front down there. The Uk’s cold is being caused by an unusual kink in the jet stream, but that wouldn’t be your problem! It’s playing havoc with wildlife though, especially manatees – see http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40611631/ns/politics/ for a short story, but I’ve seen the same news and an astonishing air photo of manatees clustering around warm water outputs.
Take care and good sailing.
Sarah (& Pip who has dreadful ‘flu)
I don’t know WHY it is so cold but I do know that we need to get out of it. By tomorrow night I expect we’ll be 30 degrees warmer.
Well, you might not have suck at Velcro Beach in the cold, but when you come back from the islands it will be warmer. In the meantime, get thee to the warm!
We are not coming back from the islands.
Love it!!!! I wouldn’t either if I were you.
Safe crossing!!
Good idea to move further south before crossing. We are in the Abacos and going freom one norther to the next. We are waiting for others from the Kingston area (we are from Collins Bay as well) to arrive before we move further south. Stick to plan A and move south!
Ian and Liz
Kalara II
Hi guys. Thanks for the tip. We’re heading to Key Biscayne tomorrow and plan to cross from there. Let’s hope it warms up for everyone! Keep your eyes open for us… we’d love to run into some other Kingstonians!