MiJoy finally left the dock at Ft Pierce City Marina after being docked for over a year. Marina has been great to us & we appreciate the staff.

We motored south down the ICW (intra coastal waterways). We normally don’t travel ICW a lot but our plan was to stage our Bahamas crossing from Lake Worth Inlet, which will allow us a shorter crossing distance across the Gulf Stream. One of the downsides of ICW is all the drawbridges you have to go under. We had 7 bridges. You have to radio the bridge controller & request for the bridge to be raised. Some bridges are opened on the hour & half hour or they will raise upon your request.

Another downside is staying in the channel & not running aground. Thank goodness for US Boat. We have been a member since 2012 & never needed a tow however today we were glad to have that membership. Nice young man came about 45 minutes after our call & got us back in the channel. I think he was being nice in saying, people do this a lot in this area, tricky reading the markers through here.....

We dropped the anchor at North Palm Beach about 5:30. There are about 40 boats in the achorage & probably half will be crossing over to Bahamas because of the weather opportunity.

The captain had been asleep about 45 minutes & I’ve made last minute phone calls to the kids😪😪. Our phones will be turned off & will communicate via FaceTime when we have internet.

Our plan is to cross over to The Berry’s & check in at Great Harbor with customs. Prayers for uneventful crossing