Our position is: 26:45.854N  80:02.611W

Procrastination about the weather window was finally over,  up bright and early on Thursday for the Gulf Stream crossing. The skies were not as bright as we would have hoped but the forecast was good and we expected a good passage. The tide was high for the exit through the unmarked and shifting channel and we could see a boat at anchor by the entrance buoys that must have arrived in the dark and was waiting for good light before tackling it.  As soon as we were clear of the shallow water we unrolled the jib, at the same time the sky went black, it started to pour with rain and the wind was gusting 35 knots from the south west – not what was forecast! Serious doubts about the wisdom of what we were doing arose and Ted went below to get another set of grib files to see if the forecast had changed materially from the night before. It proved to still be indicating 14 knot winds from the south, so we continued and the strong winds started to abate. Eventually the rain stopped as well, but not before we had to break out the heavy weight waterproofs, last used in the Bay of Biscay.

After that the passage went smoothly. Only one ship identified on the AIS seemed to be coming close as the wind was dropping and although we were passing ahead of him we were slowing down, so a radio call was made. A Scandinavian voice answered promptly and politely and although he made us nervous by first stating they would turn to starboard (which would have brought them closer) that was soon corrected and they turned to port and passed well behind. A pleasant contrast with Ted and Ross’s earlier encounter when heading for Long Island, now the subject of an official CHIRP.

In the afternoon the wind dropped and we motored for about an hour before it picked up and we were able to sail again. The benefits of the Gulf Stream were visible throughout the day as the SOG was consistently 2 to 2.5 knots faster than the log reading. A bucket of sea water collected on the way across was amazingly warm. About 10 miles off Lake Worth inlet the wind went round into the West and we had to motor the last bit, arriving as it was starting to get dark. As we entered Palm Beach harbour an enormous cruise ship was manoeuvring its way out. We had to clear customs so chose to anchor just outside the channel with a view to being handily placed for the office the next morning.

None of the books we had gave very clear information about the requirements or contact details for the customs procedures – they were all written for the American market and were only concerned with US nationals returning home – so we tried to radio them after breakfast. Customs didn’t answer but we had a response from Steve on Clear Day, who knew Moorglade from a radio encounter in George Town, when they both helped another British Yacht, Hurah, to navigate into shelter in bad weather. Steve’s daughter, Deborah, had to go to customs as she had sailed with them from Nassau and we discussed taking her in our dinghy. However the weather had deteriorated and it was raining and windy, making the harbour water very choppy, so it was agreed that Steve’s hard bottomed dinghy with much larger engine would be more suitable and he would give us a lift as well. He gave us a phone number for customs so we phoned to find out what we should do and were told to some into the office within 24 hours. When Steve and Deborah arrived at our boat it was just about to start raining and also thunder and lightning was threatened so they came aboard and Steve gave us a lot of very helpful advice about the ICW. When it was brighter we set off to find the customs office. We tried to tie up at the marina adjoining the customs building, as they had suggested but although we were allowed off the boat Steve was sent away to wait elsewhere – don’t know what we would have done if we had all needed to leave the boat! So far America had not seemed very welcoming!

It was soon to get worse! A longer walk than seemed necessary to get to the next door building (we had to get out of one fenced area and into another) took us to the customs office, where we joined the queue and took some immigration forms out of the rack on the wall and started to fill them in. When we got to the front Deborah was dealt with swiftly and politely. We apparently got the trainee who was trying to make up for his ignorance of what he should be doing by being as bombastic and officious as he could be. He gave us a further, incomprehensible form to complete and told us we should have phoned in to report our arrival. When I told him I had phoned and not been told any of that he wanted names and pack drill (presumably so he could report them for being more incompetent that he was). Deborah lent me her phone so I could make the call to an American freephone number, which took a little while, partly because I couldn’t work out how to make the various numerical selections required on her touch screen I-phone and partly because they wanted all the information I had just competed on the immigration forms verbally. When we had been issued with the magic number I turned my attention to the new form. Large parts of it were completely incomprehensible, using meaningless abbreviations and most of the rest asked irrelevant questions about cargo. When I summoned him from the back room to ask for guidance he was unable to provide anything useful and gave me another form which had the word example written across it, but as none of the boxes had been completed it wasn’t much of an example! He took away what I’d done and disappeared into the back room again. I took the opportunity to visit their luxury toilets and when I came back he and his colleague were haranguing some poor little chap who was trying to find out how he could get his British wife back in the country after she had overstayed her previous visa due to illness. The friendly American skipper of a 68m super motor yacht, who had 16 crew of assorted nationalities to check in also left in disgust after an equally frustrating time filling in meaningless forms. Eventually the helpful colleague took pity on us and told the smart arse that we shouldn’t be filling in that form anyway so he grudgingly stamped our passports and we were allowed to leave. He gleefully pointed out that now it was raining heavily, which indeed it was. Steve had taken shelter on Peanut Island, and when it stopped raining we were all reunited during another brief stop at the Riviera Marina dock.