February 9, 2013 - Carole's Birthday

Could not let the opportunity go by without mentioning Carole's birthday. We took a cab into town and had dinner at the Casino. Later we walked around the Port Lucaya market square, listened to a band while enjoying drinks, (Goombay Smash, yum, yum!).

Happy Birthday Carole

Goombay Smash

February 6, 2013 - Port Lucaya

From West End we travelled by John Travolta's house and many cruise ships in Freeport harbour.



Travolta's house. we think!

 

Cruise ships in Freeport harbour

After 3 hours we arrived at our destination for the next few weeks, "The Ocean Reef Yacht Club and Resort" in Port Lucaya. This is a small resort catering to time-shares and boaters. It was a great find since the boaters have access to all the amenities including: 2 pools, 2 restaurants, laundry, free shuttles into town and all resort activities. Joining in the activities has given us the opportunity to meet and enjoy the company of the fellow boaters, which by the way are mostly Canadians. They don't have a very strict policy here as far as Happy Hour is concerned as we've been getting 2 for 1 drinks all night long:) We think we're going to like it here!



Entrance to Ocean Reef

 

 

Watching for shoals on the way in

 

View of the many canals in the area

 

View from our slip

February 5, 2013

Happy Birthday Mom!

Left Lake Worth at 7a.m. to start our crossing. The trip started out a little bumpy due to 5ft rolling seas but nothing that the Rol & C's couldn't handle:) The waves flattened out as we progressed into the Gulf Stream which made the passage very pleasant. Roly even had a chance to put out his fishing rod and try his luck after seeing all the flying fish around us...no luck by the way:(



Going fishing



Got the rod holder on just in case!

Arrived in West End, Grand Bahama at 3p.m. and reported into Customs & Immigration. We obtained our cruising permit that included our fishing license, which doesn't come cheap at $300 cash only by the way.



Arriving in West End
 

January 21, 2013 - North Palm Beach

We anchored in North Lake Worth for 2 weeks as we were waiting for a weather window to cross over to Grand Bahamas. It certainly wasn't a bad place to stay as we were surrounded by multi-million dollar yachts including Tiger Woods little 155 footer named "Privacy". We were also only a few yards away from Jack Nicklaus' home and yachts.

Rainbow over Jack Nickclaus' house

  

Jack's house and yachts on the left...I should have learned to play golf!

 

 

Tiger Wood's yacht

 

Our stay in this anchorage gave us a great opportunity to receive guests. We had the pleasure of John and Koosje Stassen's company for a couple of days which was a great diversion from working on the boat. It was fun to have them aboard.



Roly and John

 

Koosje and Carole

 

After our guests left, it was back to the mundane tasks of sanding and prepping the decks for paint.



Finally got her to do some work, Lol 
Carole's reply "The Captain is a slave master!"



I hate sanding!

One day we dinghyed over to a landing close to a grocery store and on the way, accidentally caught our first fish. The propeller snagged a discarded fishing line which had a live catfish still hooked to it...we did not eat it!! They use strange bait in that area, SNAKE and Carole was grossed out!!!



Catfish Surprise

 

The view was so beautiful here. The anchorage was full of boats waiting as we were to cross over to the Bahamas. We got together with a couple of boats for drinks and discussed the crossing which we did together.



Our "buddy boat"  Apolonia with Phil and Carrie aboard.