If You Make Plans, You Can Be Sure That They Will Change

To those who might be thinking “why are we like a boomerang, always returning to Florida?”, I will now explain. When we left for the Bahamas our intention was to explore the islands and cays for a few months and then head north toward Maine and eventually put the Independence on a transfer ship in Rhode Island bound for the west coast. Well, as we began to spend days at anchor we realized that our batteries were not holding a charge very well. In addition, with the short, low RPM hops between anchorages we were also not able to use the engines to get them up to a full charge. This led us to using the generator more and more to keep the batteries charged and soon enough the writing was on the wall - a whole new battery array was soon to be in our future. This is not an unheard of event as boat batteries, like cars, must be changed every few years and it just so happened that now is the time for ours to be swapped out. So back to Florida we go. We arrive at ‘Nordhavn Central’, which is now Safe Harbor North Palm Beach Marina. After replacing the batteries we take advantage of being in Florida and have a little fun with our great friends Connie and Rich (thanks for making the drive across the state!). Now is the waiting game for when we can load the boat onto the transfer ship (now out of Fort Lauderdale). We will head back to Marin for a few weeks and hope for a load date around the first week of June. We are excited to think about receiving the boat in La Paz, Mexico and being able to explore Baja with all of our west coast friends and family. Well…that’s the plan any how!

The Garmin ‘inReach’ showing our track around the Bahamas and our ‘boomerang’ back to Florida

Larry and the Nordhavn crew removing the old batteries

We rented a truck to put the old batteries in for return….The larger of these batteries weigh 175 pounds each!!!

The entrance to the ICW and to Safe Harbor North Palm Beach Marina (at the white building) as seen from Parker Bridge

A baby Iguana tucked in a palm tree…the smallest one I have ever seen - less than a foot long

A little Tequila Tasting with Rich and Connie Dancaster on the back deck of the Independence