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Starting with a Sea Change

If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write something worth reading or do things worth the writing. Benjamin Franklin


Perhaps a fitting start to our new blog will be the recent change in plans. We're floating here in North Lake Worth with our heads focused a hundred miles eastward, visions of crystal clear Bahamian water and mammoth grouper impaling themselves on my Foldspear, but our recalcitrant old Volvo engine doesn't want to cooperate. Felix is still relatively new to us, and while the engine runs fine in most respects except for the billowing white smoke, we've decided to follow the less intrepid but more prudent route and stick to coastal U.S. cruising before leaving the country. So, we now plan to aim the bow northward in a few days and start heading up to the Chesapeake for the summer. The route is not new to us, but many of the challenges will be. This will be my 4th trip along the Intracoastal Waterway, and Star's 2nd. The last time we traveled the ICW together was on our previous boat, Moria, in 1995. Back when the ICW was deeper and our keel a foot shallower, so this time we get to enjoy the added task of playing the 6-7' tides through the shallow spots of Georgia. Of course, lest this sound like I'm complaining, we have so many additional items in our toolbox this go 'round we should still have a fun and relaxing time. Computer, internet, a chartplotter at the helm(must remember not to stare at it too much!), refrigeration, solar panels, dinghy on davits, roller furling sails, and not to forget a much bigger boat with 8 more feet of waterline!
This well protected and large anchorage in North Lake Worth ( N 26 50.277 W80 03.286) is a sort of magical place for us. In the fall of '96 we had just returned from spending a summer in the Abacos over in the Bahamas and were lying in this same anchorage dead broke, cruising dreams withering, planning to look for jobs. Over the radio we heard our friends on Delfina, who we hadn't talked to in a year, calling someone on the radio. We had a great reunion, our friends loaned us the money to continue on down to the Turks and Caicos where we found work and repaid them, and we had a couple of weeks of great fun here preparing the boats for our continued adventure. Just like a song reminds you of a time in your past, looking around this anchorage at the condos reminds us of good friends.While we were here the replicas of Columbus's ships the Nina and Santa Maria came in and anchored, what a sight! Like a couple of anachronistic ghost ships sailing into the harbor. I never realized that the great Navigator of the Oceans carried a Caribe inflatable RIB on the back of his ship! :)

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