We were lucky to have another nice, easy passage to West Palm Beach, and I was looking forward to checking out another new port, especially since I was off for the holidays starting Tuesday. Neither of us was sure what exactly we expected West Palm Beach to be like, but neither of us expected it to have such a cool vibe. One of Chris’s co-workers came to town to meet us for lunch at Rocco’s Tacos, and we went back to their Airbnb to hang out and have dinner. We also got to check out town a little bit, and I’m SO happy to be back in a place where there’s coconut palms!
As part of their Holiday in Paradise campaign, they have a 35 foot tall, 700 ton sand tree, along with a couple other sand sculptures, down by the waterfront and at night they have a light show synchronized to music every 15 minutes. It’s pretty cool (it would get old later in our visit when we anchored closer, but it’s fun anyway).
We anchored not too far off Peanut Island and dinghied over to explore in the mornings before work. One morning just as we were walking down the dock, Chris spotted a manatee that swam right under where I stood. I was so excited to get to see it from so close! Later in the week, we checked out the snorkel trail – it was good to get back in the water, and we saw a lot more fish than I’d expected.
I took one of my days off and made peppermint Christmas cookies – I’ve always loved baking around the holidays, so it’s a tradition I try to hold onto now that we’re living the boat life. I think the hardest thing about the holidays while traveling is having to leave behind long-standing traditions, so we’re trying to establish some new ones to make the holidays feel more special. These are delicious and easy enough to bake aboard.
On Thursday before Christmas, a weather window opened up, and we were SO close to being able to take it. Chris’s work computer had completely died the night before, so he couldn’t work that day anyway. I got Jack his vet appointment (a 4 mile dinghy ride each way with a cat was an interesting experience!), and we set to work trying to finish fixing the last of our hatches after getting some parts overnighted. Of course, that was the wrench in the works – one of the bars that holds the two frame halves together broke, and we couldn’t get it to come out. We had to take it to a machine shop and even THEY struggled and needed to soak it overnight. So, no Bahamas for us after all. Friday morning, Chris got his replacement computer and we picked up the hatch parts – fortunately they were able to get it apart, and the guy we’d taken it to only charged us for the part of the work he’d had to contract out. Apparently, he was also a cruising sailor and refused to take any money from us for his time. The cruising community continues to remind me that there are still good people in the world.
Thursday night, we went out to dinner at Batch (the chicken and waffles were amazing!), and we could feel the temperature starting to drop, as a massive cold front moved in across most of the US. With the wind building out of the north, we had a long, choppy, wet dinghy ride back to Windara, and we were so happy to see those Christmas lights! Both of us were cold and soaked by the time we got back. That made up our minds – it was time to move anchorages, and Saturday morning’s cold weather confirmed our decision. There’s a nice anchorage right off downtown, so we braved the cold, hauled anchor and relocated. While the temperature claimed to be 50°, we definitely saw a couple small flurries.
By the time we were settled in on anchor, it was late in the day and we decided we didn’t want to go to the grocery store, which meant delaying Christmas dinner by a day. I made blueberry muffins on Christmas morning (the recipe is from the Gourmet Cookbook by Ruth Reichl – our favorite and the only one we deemed worthy of precious boat space), and we spent a lazy day catching up with our families. On the 26th, we walked around Palm Beach, explored the gardens at the Philip Hulitar Sculpture Garden and Four Arts Botanical Gardens, wandered down Worth Avenue, and went to Amici Market – which felt like it was straight out of New York – to pick up our Christmas dinner. Since you can’t really get a good steak in The Bahamas, we decided that would make the perfect holiday meal.
I wasn’t feeling great on my birthday, so we delayed that celebration by a day as well. We had pizza for lunch (a throwback to when I was a kid and that was my requested birthday dinner), checked out the local aquarium, and took a nice long walk down the beach, where the water was almost as pretty as Bahamian waters. Chris took me to a nice dinner at Pastiche, where we shared the Moroccan lamb shank.
The next day, we explored the Henry Morrison Flagler Museum at Whitehall, which Flagler commissioned as a wedding present to his wife. It was amazing to see the opulence, and it was really interesting to visit after having toured Flagler College and the Lightner Museum in St. Augustine, which were both former hotels of his (the Hotel Ponce De Leon and Hotel Alcazar).
All the while, we peppered in boat work – rebuilding the aft head, polishing the stainless, and Chris had to go up the mast to deal with a messenger line that had parted. On Thursday night, we did a HUGE provision run to Publix to stock up on things that we either don’t want to buy or can’t really easily find in The Bahamas. It was a TON of stuff, but Windara easily swallowed it all up.
On Friday morning, we went to Green’s Pharmacy for breakfast (the biscuits and gravy were SO good!), printed our Bahamian cruising permit, and started to prep the boat for passage. We headed back to the anchorage south of Peanut Island to stage, and the amount of boat traffic on the ICW was INSANE, so I was glad to be the one hauling anchor rather than helming that departure). We topped off our fuel at the Intracoastal Marine Fueling barge (Pickle Rick, pushed by the tugboat Morty), which was surprisingly cheap at under $5/gallon. We dropped the hook for a few hours to finish final preparations, have dinner and make one last weather check before hauling anchor for the final time in the US for the season. It’s so exciting to finally be heading to The Bahamas, and I can’t wait to see what this season will bring.
