February 26, 2015 Lake Worth, FL

First, if you read yesterday’s blog, we just had popcorn for dinner last night.  But our dessert was an apple with dipping caramel.  When we grew up, we had popcorn often.  Our dad used to like to have an apple afterwards.  Since we didn’t even know floss existed at that point in our lives, I think that was his way of cleaning the popcorn hulls out of his teeth.  I even remember our mom occasionally making caramel like she did for her caramel rolls.  Good memories.  And yesterday morning, I thought of my mom when I opened a new container of coffee.  I used to think, how can something that smells so good, taste so bad?

This morning we ran the generator and water maker.  At first, the generator didn’t want to start.  So Dave checked the contacts for the starter and it started running.  So we made coffee, then turned it off again.  He then took his “corrosion control team toolkit” to clean the contacts.  It ran great after that.  So we ran the water maker.  We can tell when the tank is full by listening for the overfill that goes out the side of the boat or by looking at the gage.  To see the gage, you have to lift the mattress of our bed, remove a small square of wood, pull out a drawer, and shine a light in at an angle to look at the gage.  Dave could see letters, but with his “goofy eyes” he wasn’t sure what the letters were.  Since he had eye surgery, he finally saw all the letters. The markings for full and empty are P & V because Beneteau is a French boat.  Well, today, he could see the E & F on there, too.  So he looked them up and Vide is Empty and Plein is Full.  So we are going to have to recalculate our water usage the next time we fill the tanks.

It was pretty windy today.  Most of the time it was 20mph with gusts higher.  There were a few crazy people out wind surfing and kite boarding on the ICW. 

We ended up going through several Bascule bridges.  It seems the further south we go, there is more road traffic.  Many of the bridges open on a schedule of every 30 minutes.  That means you have to keep a good pace between the bridges so you don’t miss an opening and end up waiting 30 minutes for it to open.   

We have to give the bridge tender the name of our boat.  Since Luck of a Fool is unusual, they usually ask a couple times.  So I thought I should practice the phonetic alphabet so I don’t hesitate to spell it out.  Here’s how it would go: Lima uniform charlie kilo oscar foxtrot alpha foxtrot oscar oscar lima.

We went through Jupiter, FL today.  That is where we vacationed in November with my sister, Bev and our friend, Cheryl.  It was fun to see the familiar places by water.

We made it to Lake Worth today!! The ICW runs through Lake Worth, which is about 10-15 miles long north to south and on the inside of Palm Beach.  There is a major inlet used for shipping in the middle, which is also a good exit for heading to the Bahamas.  So, this is where we are going to wait for good weather to cross over to the Bahamas.  Right now, the weather isn’t cooperating.  It looks like it will be next week before we have the right winds.  So we are going to relax and try to knock this cold out of our systems.  Still hanging on in both of us :(

This is where we anchored at the north end of Lake Worth

Our view of Palm Beach on the left side and West Palm Beach on the right, closer buildings