Waking up early, we pulled up anchor to begin the 30 mile voyage through 13 bridges to reach Boca Raton. Luck was on our side as we managed to arrive at most of the bridges so we didn't have to wait long for an opening that happens every 30 minutes. Had we hit all the bridges wrong, we would have added hours to our travel time. We made it through the last bridge at 12:00pm, which brought us to Lake Boca Raton. Due to a 72 hour anchoring limit we will leave here on Tuesday.
Our initial plan to stay with our friends Cliff and Nancy Hogan just a couple of days turned into nearly a week. We enjoyed some good meals, went for a nature walk, and even watched part of the presidential inauguration. Between their fabulous hospitality and a cold front that came through. Plugged into shore power, we enjoyed turning the heater on the nights the temperature dropped below 40.
After the weather warmed and the winds calmed down, we said our goodbye's and pulled away from the dock to continue our voyage. In one day, we traveled 20 miles, through 10 bridges, to spent the night anchored at Lake Worth.
After several weeks of enjoying the comfort of our mooring, we said our goodbyes to our friends on Hawkeye, we tied everything down on the boat and dropped the mooring line ripping ourselves free to once again journey into the unknown. Or about 50 miles downriver. We suffered through a frigid day day of travel with wind gusting up to 30kts. I'm sure everyone will sympathize with us traveling on this blustery cold day of a mere 60 degrees!
We are now tied up at Hobe Sound at the dock of a friends house. We'll be staying till we leave.
For those of you who are wondering what has happened to us, we are still at Vero Beach. Often referred to as Velcro Beach by cruisers who show up here for a short amount of time and get stuck. So we stopped for a night a week and a half ago, and we are discussing the option of leaving.... really soon.
The mooring is inexpensive, there are no worries of dragging anchors or other boats that can't anchor properly. We are right next to the mangroves, there is a free bus system, most stores and the beach are easily accessible by bicycle. We can kayak through the mangroves, our friends on Hawkeye are here right now, although most moorings have two or three boats on them we have been alone the whole time, it's warm, sunny, and we're not in a hurry to get anywhere.
With the tough schedule of the day (wake up, drink tea, make food, eat food, a coat of varnish on the dorade boxes, go to a play, eat dinner, drink wine, go to bed, read in any spare time) I need to get going.
Granted it's not the usual response to be excited when being bitten by bugs while sitting outside in the evening, but we were. Yesterday evening we arrived at Vero Beach and realized we had landed in the bug zone. Although bugs are generally annoying, they mean no more REALLY cold mornings or nights.
The wind was coming from the wrong direction, the seas were rougher than we'd preferred, and regardless we set out for our first overnight in the ocean. Leaving St. Augustine at approximately 1:00pm on Dec 27, we headed out the inlet, into the ocean, where we would spend the next 24 hours. Going directly into the wind did not lend itself to much actually sailing, the rough water sloshed and churned us up a bit, and we took turns sleeping throughout the night. The next afternoon, we were quite happy to pull into the channel at Cape Canaveral with calm water around us once again. Our 24 hour voyage allowed us to skip 3 days of winding, narrow, shallow water of the intercoastal.
