Rickshaw has left the Palm Beach Yacht Center boat yard! We are now anchored in Lake Worth, which is north of PBYC and the main departure point for the northern Bahamas. After 9 weeks of repairs, we are finally on our way again. It has been a long wait but the boat is in better condition than ever and we are thrilled to be back on the water. While we wish this hadn’t happened in the first place, we were very, very lucky to have been in the care of a fantastic, competent and caring team of professionals at PBYC. We will always count them as friends. We have a request into the Coast Guard for information on what obstruction they may have found which caused the damage. We’ll let you know as soon as we know!
Our original plan was to find a buddy boat here in Lake Worth and cross over to the Bahamas. But due to the amount of time we lost and the weather conditions here for the next several days, we decided to head south to the Keys instead. Plan B isn’t a bad thing, in fact, we are both looking forward to it. We just don’t want to wait any longer to get ‘somewhere’! So, as our friend Capt. Norm says, tomorrow we are going to put the pointy end of the boat heading due south! The Bahamas will have to wait for a future trip.
As we post this, we are putting together some plans for the trip to the Keys. We’ll run down the ICW, through the exotic multi-million dollar area around Ft. Lauderdale and Miami … it is said this is a great trip … once. There are lots and lots of bridges to deal with, and narrow “no wake” zones, but it’s supposed to be worth it to see the mansions lining the ICW. Then we’ll probably stop in the Biscayne Bay area and sort out our next path. We’ve already decided we’ll run down the Atlantic curve of the Keys in Hawks Channel, as opposed to the Gulf side, since the latter is apparently very shallow and full of shoals.
Thanks for all of the support that we received during our ‘ordeal’ from friends and family. We also met some new friends, Bill and Ruth, who keep their boat in the same marina and watched over our boat during the 2 months we were back in NC. Ruth took some great pictures of us leaving the marina, which we really appreciate! We’ll update the blog as we make our way south.
Below we are starting to provision Rickshaw before we put her back in the water.
Rickshaw on her way to the water...and finally, in the water. YEA!!!
Two very happy campers on their way again.
Leaving Palm Beach Yacht Center.
On our way to Lake Worth. It feels really good to be on the water. We both feel like we have to find our 'sea legs' again but that will happen quickly.
Sunset on Lake Worth after a day of lots of rain and very high winds and potential tornados. Tomorrow, on to calmer seas and winds. YEA!
