On a beautiful Wednesday morning we finally decided we had no excuses to remain at the dock and opted to drop the lines and head south to Lake Worth. Twenty six miles, seven bridges (most of them timed) and 7.5 hours later we arrived at an anchorage just south of Peanut Island. A day with lots of bridges is always a challenge so we were ready to kick back and relax a bit. Not to be.
Around 6:30pm we received an urgent message from back home. Dave's Dad was being hospitalized. It would take most of the night, but in the weee hours of the morning another call would confirm our suspicions that his gallbladder was reeking havoc on his system causing a whole host of issues.
Now what? We couldn't believe our dreadful luck. We'd been tied to the dock in Stuart for a month and less than 12 hours after setting our sights southbound 'stuff' happens. We aren't very familiar with the Lake Worth/Palm Beach area so we opted to do the only thing that made sense to us; we headed back north to Stuart. After a relatively sleepless night, we hoisted the anchor before sunrise and started the journey. We were not looking forward to all the bridges, but remarkably we made them all, clearing the last timed bridge at a very purposefully planned 7:30am in hopes that we would beat any work crews. On arriving back at Loggerhead, everyone was waiting at the dock to take our lines. We were able to quickly get the boat secured, book a flight for the Captain and get him back to the midwest.
The good news is that a minor surgery on Thursday was able to address the immediate issues to Dave's Dad's health. An additional surgery is planned for Monday to remove the gallbladder and hopefully stop these attacks for good.
Huge hugs and thanks go out to the members of the boating community who came to our rescue on Thursday including the staff at Loggerhead Marina, Susan and Eldon on Soteria and Dave and Linda on Chimo II. We couldn't have gotten the Captain home so quickly without your help!
More to come.
The Admiral
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