Staging begins! Lake Worth, FL

We finally released our grip on Titusville and decided it was time to head south and start staging for a crossing to the Bahamas. After brief stops on the hook in Melbourne and Fort Pierce we made it to the cruiser mecca of Lake Worth! Quick geography lesson—Lake Worth, Riviera Beach, and West Palm Beach tend to be used interchangeably by cruisers and while the Port of Palm Beach is the big commercial port, the inlet is actually called Lake Worth Inlet. It’s all the same general area! Following me? 

There are marinas and haul out facilities here, a well-marked inlet that can be navigated day or night, plenty of decent anchoring options, and even free dinghy docks. It works for cruisers! We have anchored briefly here a few other times, but this is the first time we have gone ashore and made preps to cross from here. 

Another sidebar—West Palm/Lake Worth is about the northernmost “easy” departure point for a crossing to Bahamas. It’s only 55 miles to West End on Grand Bahama Island and the Gulf Stream tends to be fairly narrow here. Last year we left from Fort Lauderdale and many folks also leave from Miami or the Keys. All decent options! Given the COVID testing requirements (I’ll detail that in another post) we decided to give crossing from Lake Worth a try.

We anchored in 8’ of water just north of the Palm Beach Sailing Club on the west side of what is referred to as the “Lake Worth 1” anchorage. It wasn’t the best hook set ever, but we stayed put when backing down at >3000rpm so we stayed. This is the furthest north we have anchored in the area and we loved it! Right now it’s a well-policed no-wake zone due to manatee activity so we weren’t beat up by passing boats. It’s also close enough to the inlet that we get stunning clear water around us on the flood tide, making dreams of the Bahamas ever more prevalent after months on the ICW! This spot also allowed us to easily make it to Peanut Island to walk around and for $20 a day we could use the dinghy dock, showers, laundry, dump trash, fill water, and park a car at the sailing club. And the club had a restaurant/bar that is open every few days that was cheap and fun!

Around Peanut Island

We rented a car for a day to knock out COVID tests, get a few parts, and grab one more load of groceries. Other than that we did school, laundry, and a few minor boat fixes, topped off the water, celebrated the Skipper’s birthday, and waited. And it worked! This is a decent place to wait out weather windows, meet up with other cruisers, and tend to shore chores!

(Clockwise) Installing a new keel strip on the dinghy, checking on things underwater, haircut day, provisioning run, new shoe storage install, propane fill.

A birthday celebrated with FOOD!

Waiting