Nov 29

Having arrived in paradise, we immediately developed itchy feet and decided to double back to Stuart where we would take a mooring ball and to rent a car for the weekend. Also, we had talked to our friends on the Great Catsby who would be at Lake Worth that evening. Our challenge was that it was 85 miles and we had only 12 gallons of gas on board. In calm conditions, at our normal cruising speed, we can go just a little over 80 miles on 12 gallons. I would not, however, like to find ourselves fighting a strong tidal current in some narrow inlet lined with rocks and sand bars when running on fumes. A light breeze was forecast from the East, however, and I was hopeful that if it materialized, we could motorsail. If not, we would not be in danger of running out of gas as we could monitor our consumption. We would just have to enter an inlet to gas up. Unfortunately, the sun would not rise until just after 7:00 AM and would set before 5:30. If we had to pull into an inlet, we would loose an hour or two and would not have enough time to make the anchorage in Lake Worth before dark.

As it was, we left the anchorage in Key Biscayne in the pre-dawn light. Five to ten knots of breeze filled in from the East. We were able to motorsail. We arrived in the Lake Worth anchorage after the sun had set but before it was dark and we still had a little over 2 gallons of gas in the tank.

We did meet up with Rich and Carol from the Great Catsby and had a great reunion.