While we have completed the Immigration part of our check in we still have to deal with our cruising permits; the document/process which allows our Canadian licensed/registered boats to remain in the US. But this'll have to wait until Monday so we have to stay put until then.

Now you have to visualize West Palm Beach on a fantastic Sunday in late March. There are more boats of all sizes and descriptions than you can imagine, from 200 foot mega yachts to kayaks, all circulating in a very congested and complicated harbour. Add to this melange, dredges, barges, cruise ships, police boats, freighters, tour boats and you might have some idea what a aquatic cacophony this presents. As the day wears on the land breeze picks up and this adds to the tumult. It's absolute mayhem. Judy and I take our dingy to visit a cruising friend and then intend to go to dinner at a shore side tiki bar. But, I'm terrified and once we leave our friend's boat we opt to head back to the relative security of Sea Sharp. I've never seen anything like this!

Oh, well, dinner on Sea Sharp is always a treat!

We get up the next morning and while he weather portents violent wind and thundershowers, Roger and I head dutifully in to the Customs and Border Patrol Office to renew our cruising permits. We are warned about violent thunder and lightening storms but figure with an early start, we can do our business and get back to our boats before the tumult hits. We are first in line but the office opens late and the bureaucratic nonsense takes much more time than we figure. I get a cellular call from Jacquie who pleads with me that the wind is piping up and she and Judy are concerned about being on the boats alone. About fifteen minute later I get another call from a more agitated Jacquie who reports that it is gusting to 45 knots and very violent and that she and Judy are very concerned. Finally our paperwork is complete and Roger and I run back to the dinghy and head back post haste to our boats. By this time it has settled down some but we understand that our Admirals endured some very tense moments with the boats pitching and lurching on their anchors. Should the boats have dragged could have had calamitous results. Nonetheless they did well.

So this our second return to Lake Worth/West Palm Beach from Bahamas to unwelcoming conditions both climatically and bureaucratically.