At the time of our last posting, we were in Vero Beach. We stayed there 6 days and then started south planning to take our time getting back to the Keys (about 250 miles south). Well, once we turned Enchantress' bow south she took off like a stable horse bound back to the barn for a meal! We stopped in favorite anchorages, spent a few days in those we really liked, but she just kept moving right along and we arrived back in Boot Key Harbor here in the Keys way earlier than we had planned! But it was great to be back home! As we are cruising people are always asking us "Where are you from?" and we always look like "deer caught in the headlights" because we aren't from anywhere! So we say we live on a sailboat and cruise around. But really, the correct answer should probably be that we are "from" the Florida Keys as that is where we spend at least half of each year or more. :-)
When we left Vero Beach we stopped in Fort Pierce to anchor and go in to a West Marine to get a new pump for the galley which broke. I replaced the pump and rebuilt the old one to have as a spare. There are no plumbers who fix things on boats so you have to play plumber yourself. Sorry, I don't have any photos of me wearing a heavy tool belt with my pants hanging low showing "plumber butt"! ;-0 The galley pump was our only malfunction/repair during the entire cruise!
From there we moved on down to Peck Lake and went ashore to walk over the dunes to the Atlantic Ocean to collect some beautiful shells. The beach is only accessible by boat so the shells are not "picked over" by thousands of people!
We then sailed down to North Palm Beach. Unfortunately, just before we got to where we wanted to go to anchor, a bridge was having a malfunction and would not open! We went in circles for TWO HOURS before I lost what little patience I have (we all know that is precious little and not to be wasted!!!!) and we went into a cove nearby that was off the ICW and anchored and spent the night. The next morning the bridge was fixed, although only one side could be raised so it was very narrow and we held our breath as the mast passed through the opening and we were able to get through.
While we are on the subject of bridges, there are two types. A fixed bridge that you are all familiar with (it doesn't open or lift up for boats to go through, boats just go under it). Those are usually 65 feet high which is plenty for our 38 foot high mast to clear. The other type are opening bridges (AKA lift bridges, bascule bridges, draw bridges, swing bridges, etc.) and those have to open for us to pass through while the cars wait (in other words, Enchantress is so beautiful that she stops traffic!!). On the east coast of Florida on the ICW between Palm Beach and Miami there are A LOT OF BRIDGES that have to open for us. This can be irritating when you arrive just after the opening time and the next opening is not for a half hour so you go in circles, wait, and practice your patience. Some opening bridges open "on request" so we just call on the radio and ask them to open and they stop the traffic and open for us! Yeah!
Most draw bridges are rather non-descript, just functional but not pretty. There are a few exceptions though! Here are a couple of photos of the more attractive bridges that have some architectural character!
Here is one that we nicknamed the "Cinderella's Castle" bridge:
And here is the Hollywood Beach bridge:
We anchored in North Palm Beach and went ashore to restock the pantry at a supermarket and spent a couple of days off the waterway. Then we sailed on down past Palm Beach and West Palm Beach, daaaarhling! We anchored in one of our favorite places, the small village of Lantana. We, of course, had to get some "Sticky Buns" from the bakery that we like so much. While we were anchored there we were visited by manatees who swam around the boat. We stayed there several days and Linda was able to work on the "NASA" quilts that she was making for Olivia and Laura to commemorate their visit to the Kennedy Space Center. Here are a couple of photos of the finished quilts (they have NASA patches or appliques that we bought at the Space Center):
When we left Lantana we stopped for a night in Boca Raton and then on to Fort Lauderdale. We spent three nights anchored in the Middle River anchorage. We went shopping at the nearby mall and Borders, got groceries, did laundry, filled the water tank and jugs, etc. One day as we were returning to the boat in the dinghy we saw that we had a new "neighbor" anchored near our boat. Now most of our "neighbors" where we anchor are on boats our size or a bit larger. But this was a MEGA-yacht! 130 feet long! Anchored VERY close to us!! The rich people on board had rolled a speed boat out of the back "garage" and were waterskiing making huge wakes! Fortunately for us, we knew they would not spend the night and would go home as most powerboaters do (have to get back to the marina to plug into the electric and run the airconditioner). Well, they did finally leave but we had the entertainment of watching the paid crewmembers looking out over the bow trying to figure out why the anchor wouldn't come up!!
The next day as we passed by the mega-mansions along The Miracle Mile in Fort Lauderdale only 2 miles from where we had been anchored, and there was the same yacht tied up at what we think is probably the biggest mansion of all on The Miracle Mile! Poor sucker had to go back to work to pay for that yacht and mansion and we were still playing!! Tee-Hee!
From Fort Lauderdale we motored down the ICW to anchor in the Baker's Haulover Inlet anchorage (photo previously posted when we stopped there on the way north). Very pretty anchorage. Water very clean and clear, so we went swimming and cleaned the bottom of the hull. It was amazingly clean, not many barnacles at all, which shows why boats should be kept moving and not lie in a harbor growing a reef on the bottom!! We then spent a couple of days anchored in Miami Beach. BUT there were tropical storms and hurricanes forming and marching across the Atlantic, one right after the other in a parade! Soooo...we decided to make the run down Biscayne Bay and back to the Keys before we ended up "stuck" in the Miami area with not a lot of places to hide or safe harbors to ride out a storm.
We stopped at Pumpkin Key and Tarpon Basin in Key Largo and then spent four days in the anchorage off Islamorada where we went shopping, ate lunch at the Loreleie Restaurant, and waited out some windy weather. Here is a photo taken from the boat at Islamorada:
We sailed from Islamorada down the Gulf side of the Keys and anchored off Marathon. We were only a few miles "as the crow flies" from Boot Key Harbor (our home harbor) but still had about 15 miles to go because we had to sail down to the Seven Mile Bridge, under the bridge and backtrack north to enter the harbor. Here is a photo taken from the boat anchored off Marathon:
The water here is crystal clear and you can see everything on the bottom 8 or 10 feet under the boat. Little did we know that while we were anchored there one of our friends from the harbor, who I had been keeping informed of our position, had decided to come out in a dinghy to surprise us and welcome us home. BUT the motor on the dinghy would not start so she couldn't get out to see us. But it was a very nice thought!
The next morning we weighed anchor and headed home. We called in on the morning radio net to let everyone in the harbor know that we were coming into the harbor that morning and returning from our summer cruise to spend the winter again in Boot Key Harbor. As we went under the Seven Mile Bridge from the Gulf into the Atlantic Ocean we encountered our biggest waves and roughest water of the entire summer!! But it was only about 3 miles to the harbor entrance so we held on and Enchantress did her usual good job of handling the big waves. We entered the harbor and tied up to a mooring ball out in the harbor (same mooring that we had been on our first winter here in 2006). We had a great summer cruise, we are "home", back in paradise, ready to "Waste away again in Maragarittaville"!! Big smiles on our faces!
We will settle back into life here in the harbor and will be flying up to Connecticut for a visit in early October. Linda has not seen the fall foliage in Connecticut before and we will be there this time for Amy's birthday.
1 comment:
ohhhh, So good to have you back home!
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