Time Bandit

It’s back to the Caribbean leaving a chilly USA east coast for the winter months in the sun.

30 January 2025 | West Palm Beach
17 January 2025 | Cape Canavaral
07 January 2025 | St Augustine
24 December 2024 | En Route Sunshine
18 December 2024
04 December 2024 | Norfolk, VA
19 November 2024
01 November 2024
28 October 2024
11 October 2024
29 September 2024 | The Andes From 30,000ft
23 September 2024
02 September 2024
13 August 2024
22 July 2024
29 June 2024 | The Hamptons, Long Island Sound
08 June 2024
07 June 2024 | Port Washington

Topping Up

30 January 2025 | West Palm Beach
Stuart Letton
We were in West Palm Beach last week, home of millionaires, billionaires and "yer man", the primary contributor to the interestingly named "Truth Social" - The Donald.

Us peasants anchor out in the fairway that includes the Intra Coastal Waterway. The squillionaires keep their boats in one of the many marinas lining the shores. It's not as convenient being out at anchor but at $5.50 to $8.00 per foot, per day it's a lot cheaper. It's also quieter, well away from the exhaust noises of the Lamborghinis, Maybach Mercs and Hummers.

Regular readers might have seen me write about the "St Martin Navy", the rafts of super yachts that inhabit the St Martin lagoon during the cruising season in the Caribbean. Well, now we know where they come from, West Palm Beach.

We could take all the boats out of our three largest marines on the Clyde, perhaps numbering more than two thousand decent-sized sailing boats and there still wouldn't be enough room to park all the super yachts and sport fishing boats.

In need of topping up our diesel tanks, we dinghies into the fuel dock, armed with our two, twenty-litre Jerry Cans.

"Will you fill me up please".

"Sure", said the smartly uniformed marina man. "Once I've filled this guy." Ahead of us, dwarfing our little rubber dinghy, was a seventy-foot or so sport fishing boat. You know, these very rakish looking powerboats with forty or fifty feet of scaffolding above the deck, from which lofty, swaying perch they can steer towards the game fish they're chasing ..... or vomit on the crew below.

We sat and sat and sat as the wide-bore diesel pump filled this guy. Five thousand gallons of diesel!

No wonder fish is so expensive.
Comments
Vessel Name: Time Bandit
Vessel Make/Model: Outremer 51
Hailing Port: Largs, Scotland
Crew: Anne and Stuart Letton
About: ex dinghy and keelboat racers now tooled up with a super sleek cat and still cruising around aimlessly, destination Nirvana...
Extra: Next up....the Caribbean. We've left South Africa in our wake and now off to Namibia, St Helena, Brazil, Suriname and into the Caribbean. Well, that' the vague plan. We'll see what happens.
Home Page: http://www.sailblogs.com/member/timebandit/profile
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Time Bandit's Photos - Main
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Scraping and sanding hull back to gel coat for epoxy and Coppercoat treatments.
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