22 Bridges, 45 Miles and 8 Hours

This is the last of the 22 bridges we did... That boat was huge and wasn't sure if he could make it through with just one bridge side up. 

The intercostal in southern Florida had a different feel. Tedious, Jon would say. Probably a few other words like  time sucking,  exasperating and exhausting. Ever bridge has it's own schedule like only on the hour or half hour or only quarter after or quarter before the hour or only twenty after or twenty before the hour. If you missed one opening your doomed...which we did ofcourse ( I miss read the bridge table that gave the mileage and so Jon slowed down and we missed it...what?..it could happen to anyone). It also was a holiday. All the nice people of the world were out celebrating Martin Luther King Jr's Day, just not on the intercostal. A man that was towing a rather large catamaran asked the bridge tender if all the locals were red necks because they were passing him under the bridge at about 40 miles per hour. She said probably and the pedestrians were not much better, when she announces the bridge will be opening they run toward the bridge instead of waiting. Like I said a different feel. Even the houses were grander with huge boats in front of them. But.. We survived to make Ft Lauderdale by 4:00 and grabbed a city mooring ball. The big payoff is that the beach is only three blocks away and it's a beautiful 75 degrees.   But next time we'll consider going on the outside(what sailors call going on the Atlantic instead of the intercoastal) when visiting south Floridia. 

One of the houses that I had time to take

      This house just looked cool

     Real mermaids!!

     The water is so clear and pretty. 

      Our feet. 

Some kind of gar fish swimming in surf where we were walking on Ft Lauderdale Beach 

We couldn't capture the beautiful colors of green and teal. So pretty. 

Huge ship coming into Ft Lauderdale Channel. 

Traveling Again

After being at a dock for a week, we were more than ready to get moving again. Even if we had to leave the hot tub, the infinity pool, the work rooms, the captains quarters and last but certainly not least the pool bar/grill Splash. I can tell you we used everything at the Loggerhead Resort and Marinia especially the hot tub after pulling the transmission and working on Quicksilver all day.   We even took a day and walked over the bridge to Stuart's old downtown. We had a really nice walk along the River on the River Walk.   

So we made it a shorter day of about 35 miles to Lake Worth-Palm Beach area and anchored for the night. Our anchorage was quiet compared to the busy inlet.  Tomorrow we'll head for Ft Lauderdale where we hope to see our nephew Ben and Ashley as well as our friends Ladd and Denise. We'll probably stay for a few days before heading to Miami.  

     Relax

The lights on the bridge going to Stuart

Monday we finially hit different color water

       Light house near Jupiter

Our sunset at anchorage at Lake Worth, Palm Beach. 

A bunch of mega Yachts across from our anchorage.  

Rescued At Sea - no

Well not exactly at sea... More like in the intercostal near St.Lucie River.  We had left Velcro (Vero) Beach by 7:30 am and we didn't feel like we were making very good time. We thought we just had the current against us. Unfortunately, we heard a loud clunk..and we had no more forward motion, I took the wheel and Jon went below to confirm that we had no transmission.  (Funny thing was a couple of days prior we were listening to a story of a couple traveling in the Bahamas and their transmission went and the part, damper plate, was given to them by another sailor that happened to have a spare. Jon went home and promptly looked at our transmission and damper plate and realized it wouldn't be to hard to change.).  So after putting the anchor down and calling Tow Boat US (another weird coincidence is that a week earlier I called Boat US about our insurance and payments. The agent let me know that our unlimited Towing insurance had lapsed December 31....would we want to renew that as well. Ofcourse we did. Wow. Lucky or what!  When the Tow Boat guy came he said since we are gold members he would have to tow us where  we wanted.  The only place that had room, had enough depth (remember we draw 5 1/2 feet) and would let Jon work on our own boat was this resort, Loggerhead Club and Marina. With some recommendations from our friend Jon Libby we were able to get the damper plate sent to us.  Jon and I rigged a pulley system with our man-overboard kit and two boat hooks. We make a good team. 

Rescued by our brave Boat US Tow Boat

At least nice day and not to rough also being towed at about 7 knots we might get the bottom of our boat cleaned.  Also funny..not too funny.. The guy lost one of his engines right as he delivered us to the dock. 

Picture of our resort from brochure.  Everyone where's "Love Boat" uniforms. I think we met Julie. 

      Jon working on wiggling it out. 

 

Finially got it free. Weighs 100 plus pounds. 

     Our rigging system. 

Broken damper plate.,..,.blown apart. 

Brand new damper plate.  Tony from Transmission Marine, inc said it would look slightly different from the original!!  

  Box of parts to go back into transmission. 

The boat gets torn up during repairs.  

   Us enjoying the pool after hard days work. 

   Ahhh!  Relax !

         Full moon about 6pm. 

Velcro Beach

No, that wasn't a misprint. Everyone that stops at Vero Beach calls it Velcro Beach because once you get there you don't want to leave. That may be true, however, we hit Velcro and had a few good days but the rest rainy.  We did manage to visit the beach a few times which we enjoyed so much. We also rode the free bus to Publix, West Marine and to Target(we needed to go to Target to get some solar mini lights for ambience under our canvas. We wanted them after seeing them on our mooring ball buddies(also our friends) Ruth and Darrell's boat, Nite Cap II. and,yes, you read this correctly, we had mooring buddies. Velcro beach had found a way to make it double the fun and put to boats on one mooring ball. Fortunately our friends were there already and we were able to moor with them. We decided that Darrell and Ruth were bad influences because we had so much fun checking out different restaurants and tasting all the local beers.  We were treated to a special visit from our friend and Jon's xboss, Tommy and his girlfriend Michelle. We had such a fun night  we laughed and ate way too much.   

      Our ride to Velcro (Vero) Beach

  Finially got a picture.  They come right along the boat....scaring Jon till he figures it out it's just flipper.  

Lots of sandbars and people take full advantage. 

Had such a good time with Tommy and Michelle at the Riverside Cafe (it was funny they picked us at the dingy dock and tried to follow GPS.  Took us half an hour to figure out it was about three doors down from us.....but under a bridge... Very strange but makes perfect sense from the water. We know because we went again by dingy.  

Ruth enjoying the sun on Nite Cap's deck

Darrell...one of the few times he was relaxing, he was always showing us up by fixing or cleaning something.  

Ruth and Darrell on our boat for a night cap. 

Jon and I, notice our cute solar lights in the background.  

I Dream of Jea..I mean Cocoa Beach

Traveled all day under cloudy skies toward Cocoa Beach. We saw lots of dolphins and suspect some manatees. The manatees only show a little of themselves so you're really not sure what you're seeing.  This stretch of Florida's intercoastal is a really narrow channel about nine to ten feet deep within the Indian River.  It's pretty straight and we seem to be making good time.  (No lower than 5.8 knots...up to about 6.5).  We left New Symrna at 7:45 and reached Cocoa about 3:30. We passed Kennedy Space Center and saw a Space Shuttle on the west side of the River and a Rocket ready for launch on the east side of the River.  So cool. Also on the VHF weather they give a "space coast" report. Friday and Sunday they were launching rockets off the Atlantic coast from 3pm to  7pm. They warn to watch for falling rockets and stay clear of the area. OK!

Will do!  

Today making our way to Vero Beach. Some sailors call it Velcro Beach because you never want to leave it. We will let you know.  We will probably stay for a couple of days as we are getting another cold front promising temperatures in the 30s and gale force winds on Monday night and Tuesday.   Guess we'll have our generator out and our little buddy heater. 

Sweet New Smyrna Beach

New Smyrna Beach is such sweet stop. They have an old downtown with nice shops and restaurants and a busy beach side.  The city Marinia is in a cozy cove where dolphins eat & play,  pelicans and about twenty different birds nest. We enjoyed looking out the back of our boat  watching all the activity. We had a pelican with a broken wing hanging around until they came to rescue him.   I helped by going to the bait shop to get fish for him. A man cleaning boat bottoms was able to get him when he jumped in the water. Now he is very lucky to be tgetting attention at the discovery center.   Jon and I had a planned meeting with my college friends Debbie and Terry but had a suprise visit from friends from New York that bought a townhouse in New Smyrna. Lyn found out through Facebook we were here. Lyn and her husband, Kym, took us all over to see the beach side and to look for manatees. Unfortunately we haven't seen any yet. It was so much fun catching up with my college friends, deb and terry. It so funny how it seems that no time is passed when we all get talking. We just pick up and catch up right where we left off.   We'll stay here for another night and then make this a regular stop.  Maybe get warmer weather next time. Tomorrow is Saturday and we hope to head to Titusville before the next cold front comes through.   

   Debbie and me. Love her so much!

Deb's daughter, Cecile and son Lucas. Lucas spotted the pelican's broken wing

      Terry and Deb. Our friends are bad-a

The poor pelican with broken wing

Laying the bait. 

Maybe I could have a snack. 

He wants to help too. 

I'm cornered  !!

Shoving his wing in the box.  He's off to get help at the discovery center. 

Jon and Kym having cocktails 

Lyn and I being goofy. 

This is our day today. Reason to stay put one more day.