Saturday, January 12, 2013

Palm Beach Yacht Center - at a dock

The docks are very unforgiving - but we made it okay. Sharp edges all around. 
The closest marina for a visit to Joe Mastri is the Palm Beach Yacht Center. All the docks are fixed which is mostly the rule once you reach Florida since the tides are not very high. I called ahead but it turns out they do not take reservations! Oh well, we weighed anchor around 9:00 and headed south through 10 bridges. As I mentioned in past blogs, if you can maintain 7 kts, then you can make all the bridges without a layover for an opening. Unfortuntely for us, today was a new moon which caused greater than normal tides and currents with the current being against us all the way (puzzling since we passed inlets along the way...) The adverse tide caused us to miss one of the bridge openings.

Florida leads the nation in these parking spaces
As we arrived at the marina, we found what is called a "drain tide" which means the low of the low tide is even less than normal, 0.5 ft today. We inched in and was able to clear the bar across the marina entrance and Ann guided the boat into the slip - by just the two of us since there was no one to help us which sometimes happens down here. Ann did well guiding the boat in. She still has a terrible black eye (no photos!) from her head knock but she's gradually getting over her cold.

Since the flu season started early this year, even in Florida, although it's less here than elsewhere. Considering the advanced flu season and Ann, we decided to eat in instead of going to a restaurant with Joe. So after a dinner at Joe's condo, we're back for the night. We'll do more provisioning with Joe on Sunday and then leave for Ft Lauderdale Monday.




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