We cut ties early in the morning with Bill and Jeannette on Myosotis – our rafted buddies on the mooring ball. Here is a picture Jeannette took of us “dancing in the moonlight”!
After a cleansing pump out of the holding tanks and a refill of the water tanks we started back doen the Indian River. Christopher was excited to be on the go again and with the straightforward route and a fair wind we let out the our forsail and motor sailed happily along. Felt good to have wind in the sail for the first time in ’09 and it helped keep our speed up. We expected to have many boats on the water but we didn’t see many at all.
Our destination was an anchorage in Manatee Pocket near Stuart, Fl. This is a well protected area lined with marinas and huge sport fishing boats. We can feel the cold front coming in. Going down to about 50 degrees F tonight. Brrrrr.
Thursday we were up with the sun and headed on through areas lined with excessive opulence contrasted with wildlife sanctuary zones, often across the waterway from each other. As we approach the more southern areas the number of bridges increases. These bridges often require a bit of fancy dancing and timing. Some are restricted and open at set intervals, others open when asked, politely of course. This combined with brisk winds, significant currents and boats that can leave ocean size wakes make waiting and jockying around the bridges a mouth drying challenge. And these things all open at different speeds. We had a near infraction of the mast cracking type when I approached the opening spans a little too soon, anticipating that they were opening faster and I started to let the river’s speed take us through. With our eyes wide open and shut tight at the same time we squeeked through the very centre. And this is the warm up for our thrust into Fort Lauderdale which amplifies this by having concrete walls lining the channel to happily bounce the waves back and forth creating a kind of perpetual wake machine. Woo-hoo! Tonight we dropped anchor at Lantana, south of Palm Beach. Couldn’t get a good enough internet connection here. I was out in the dark dangling our connector right off the bow to grab an airwave or two and got enough to send grandma and grandpa a quick note to let them know where we were. Then the wind would shift…
Our destination was an anchorage in Manatee Pocket near Stuart, Fl. This is a well protected area lined with marinas and huge sport fishing boats. We can feel the cold front coming in. Going down to about 50 degrees F tonight. Brrrrr.
Thursday we were up with the sun and headed on through areas lined with excessive opulence contrasted with wildlife sanctuary zones, often across the waterway from each other. As we approach the more southern areas the number of bridges increases. These bridges often require a bit of fancy dancing and timing. Some are restricted and open at set intervals, others open when asked, politely of course. This combined with brisk winds, significant currents and boats that can leave ocean size wakes make waiting and jockying around the bridges a mouth drying challenge. And these things all open at different speeds. We had a near infraction of the mast cracking type when I approached the opening spans a little too soon, anticipating that they were opening faster and I started to let the river’s speed take us through. With our eyes wide open and shut tight at the same time we squeeked through the very centre. And this is the warm up for our thrust into Fort Lauderdale which amplifies this by having concrete walls lining the channel to happily bounce the waves back and forth creating a kind of perpetual wake machine. Woo-hoo! Tonight we dropped anchor at Lantana, south of Palm Beach. Couldn’t get a good enough internet connection here. I was out in the dark dangling our connector right off the bow to grab an airwave or two and got enough to send grandma and grandpa a quick note to let them know where we were. Then the wind would shift…
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