West Palm Beach

Innamorata
Steve & Carol
Fri 10 Jan 2025 19:34
26:43.45N 080:02.625W Here we had a nice big space, there are a few boats mainly catamarans but a couple of monohulls as well, Kismet with Tom and Janine on, who we met in Fort Pierce anchored not too far away which is always nice to know someone in the anchorage. ![]() ![]() From here it's about a mile dinghy ride into the dinghy dock which is big and free which is a bonus as there aren’t many dinghy docks in Florida - in lots of places they seem to discourage people going ashore by wanting crazy amounts of money to park a dinghy for a couple of hours to go shopping etc - they can want $35 for a day😱. ![]() Anyway west palm beach is a nice change, it has a nice feel as you walk around with lots of restaurants, bars as well as street art, easy walk to the Publix supermarket - you pay premium priced as its an upmarket supermarket but it is what it is and probably a bit cheaper than the Bahamas! For Florida which has a bit of a reputation as being cruiser unfriendly it's defiantly a good stop. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() We were here for Christmas and New Year. Christmas Eve we went ashore to a small cruisers gathering, it was windy and the mile dinghy ride back was wet but we had a good time, saw Tom and Janine as well as a few other people we knew and met some new people. ![]() ![]() Christmas day was a quiet affair on Innamorata, we had a lovely Christmas dinner and spoke to family and had a restful day. NewYear, friends Tom and Janine came over for drinks and to all of our surprise we managed to stay up till midnight to watch the numerous distant firework displays around the anchorage. Some of our stay the weather was gorgeous and some of it was windy and with the long fetch in the anchorage we mostly stayed on board for windy days. Atlantic side of Palm island ![]() ![]() Lovely sunset over west palm beach ![]() We also ran into problems with our petrol generator - when we tried to use it after a few days of 100% cloud cover which meant the batteries were getting low it wouldn’t start, 4 days of googling, messing around with it, taking carb to pieces quite a few times 🫣, swapping it out for an old one, changing the plug cleaning the air filter and fuel tank etc we realised the problem was the inlet valve - so more googling and Steve took the cover off and found the inlet valve was stuck open so it was never going to start, anyway with some not too gentle persuasion he managed to free it and once back together it started first pull, of course by now the sun was shining and the batteries didn't need topping up via generator but we ran it anyway! Now we were waiting for some parts we had ordered so we hung around waiting for them. we took the bus to a few places - $1 each way for over 50’s no matter how long you're on the bus - it's the first place we have been with a good bus service! The bus made the trip to collect packages and a trip to Aldi easy. We were really getting itchy feet and without a decent sailing weather window to get to Bahamas we decided to leave on a day it was going to be a bouncy salty sail! |