And so it begins................

We arrived back in Jacksonville on Thursday afternoon, rented a car and headed to the boat. I had a little anxiety regarding what shape I would find her, but as usual there was no need to worry. Jacksonville had some heavy winds a few weeks ago and I was concerned about covers blowing off. We had one cover come unsnapped, but it was held down by straps. So no losses. I always leave my open array radar perpendicular to the center-line of the boat, but it was sitting at a different angle so I knew the wind had been pretty strong and moved it some. 

The boat was a lot less dirty than I thought it would be and that is probably due to regular rainfall. Not much dirt on the boat, but quite a few streaks. A good washdown took care of those streaks and kept me busy for three hours. Encore is looking very good now. 

The local daytime temps have been close to 80 degrees since we have been here. This was quite welcome after leaving home with a few inches of snow on the ground and made washing the boat much more comfortable. We even had to run the AC.

We made our first big provisioning trip to BJ's yesterday. We still had quite a few non-perishables, but it was time to start stocking up on meat and other items that we will need over the next two months. The AC/DC freezer that we purchased last summer is working great and we haven't even filled it yet. We were concerned about storage, but are finding nooks and  crannies that work. ​

It took a couple trips with the cart to get everything to the boat. We still have a few trips to make before we return the rental car on Tuesday. Our goal is to take as much as we can to avoid high Bahamas prices. We will still have to find fresh produce and other perishables while we are there.

Palm Cove Marina is a convenient location for this type of thing. There are lots of places for provisioning and there is a West Marine just down the street. Once we leave here, it will be a lot more complicated. The marina has worked well for us, however the WiFi, like many other marinas along the ICW,  is not always reliable. Sometimes it works great and other times there is significant lag or weak signal.

It has been a full moon the last couple of nights, so low tide is really low. 

The low tide will not be as low later in the week, but we will still need to wait until mid tide to head out the short channel that connects with the ICW. 

We hope to leave here on Thursday and head to St. Augustine where we have a reservation for a mooring ball. At this point, it looks like the weather will cooperate. Everything we do from this point forward will be determined by weather conditions. Wish us luck!