Happy New Year!

I know, I know - I'm only three weeks late with that greeting!  I also know I probably lost many of my followers who by now have decided that I'm never going to post again!  I'm sorry to those of you who have continued to look during the last month or so.  Once we were back on the boat after the holidays I just wasn't into writing and I didn't feel I had that much to write about.

We ended up being in Ft. Lauderdale much longer than anticipated due to weather conditions.  The biggest reason weather was such a hindrance was because we knew we had to go offshore from Ft. Lauderdale to Miami because there is a fixed bridge across the Intercoastal Waterway in north Miami that only has a 56 foot clearance and our mast is a little over 60 feet tall.  In the meantime while we were waiting for a nice day we anchored in some beautiful settings surrounded by multi-million dollar homes with multi-million dollar yachts docked out front!

Unfortunately, we didn't have the camera with us one afternoon when we were riding around in the dinghy. We saw a huge yacht named "Sunday Money", which is a very interesting name and upon closer inspection I realized "Dale Earnhardt, Jr." was painted on one of the big antenna balls way up on top of the boat!  Sure enough - once we got back to our boat - I Googled the boat name and found out that it does indeed belong to him and was docked in front of his Ft. Lauderdale house!

The offshore sail from Ft. Lauderdale to Miami was just a little rougher (at times) than I would have liked but the view of Miami Beach, South Beach, etc. from the ocean was incredible!  Here are a few pictures and I am especially proud that I was able to pick out the Fountain Bleu because I know a few of you have actually stayed there!

Here are a few pictures I made once we were in the huge channel (where all the cruise ships and ocean freighters enter) coming into downtown Miami.

We anchored in a beautiful cove just off of Biscayne Bay across from downtown Miami.  It was a spectacular sight both day and night!

  

After spending a few interesting days in this anchorage watching teams of young men and women from all over the world train for Olympic sailing, rowing, etc. (in conjunction with the University of Miami) we moved on to Key Biscayne where we would fill up with fuel, water and groceries in preparation for our run down through the keys on our way to Marathon.  Key Biscayne - a very beautiful and exclusive island where it's obvious that a lot of wealthy people from all over the world live and/or vacation.    

It only took us three days to get from Key Biscayne to Marathon - yes, we finally made it!  We spent the night at Key Largo and Islamorada along the way and here is what we saw as we got close to Marathon - beautiful!

This is where we passed under the Seven Mile Bridge from Florida Bay to the Atlantic Ocean on our way to Boot Key Harbor at Marathon.

Entering Boot Key Harbor

We're planning to stay here for a few months and we have some friends and family members planning trips down to get away from the cold weather back home!  I don't plan to post as often as I did when we were traveling but I will be sharing some pictures as we explore all that the keys have to offer. 

West Palm, Boca Raton and Ft. Lauderdale

Wow, wow and wow!  Too many gorgeous homes, yachts and resorts to make pictures of and they all seem to get bigger with each move southward!

We spent a wonderful Thanksgiving with previous next door neighbors in their home in Wellington, which is just west of West Palm Beach.  It was really nice to be off of the boat for a couple of days enjoying a warm Florida Thanksgiving week-end.  Of course we had the traditional "turkey with all the fixings" meal followed by fishing in the lake behind their house and then later decorating the Christmas tree in their living room!  It was certainly the next best thing to being back home with our families.

On Friday we drove out to the beach and the girls went fishing on the pier, which turned out to be a lot of fun because the fish were really biting that day.  They caught a dozen fish in less than two hours!  Very exciting! With a cooler half full of fish we decided that a fish fry was definitely in order for dinner that night!

On Saturday they drove us around West Palm Beach and we all had lunch at a Tiki Bar on the waterfront before heading back to the marina to show them our boat and say our goodbyes.  It was a really good holiday week-end but time to move on!

Fishing on the Lake Worth pier!

More beautiful water here!

West Palm Beach waterfront

From West Palm we went on to Boca Raton where we anchored in beautiful Boca Raton Lake for several nights.  We also met back up with friends from our yacht club and marina back in Hampton who are on their sailboat for the winter and will eventually be going to the Bahamas.  The four of us really enjoyed spending a few days together in Boca.  We went to the beach which was really close by and on our last night we walked into town for dinner and then attended the Boca Raton Christmas parade, which was pretty awesome!
Scenes around Boca lake.

 This yacht was parked really close to where we were anchored and someone started decorating it for the Christmas boat parade while we were there!

Boca Christmas parade

Next stop before the holidays was Ft. Lauderdale - "yachting capital of the world"!

Christmas lights in Ft. Lauderdale

Cocoa, Vero Beach and Stuart

Hello again.  I know some of you have been wondering if or when I would write another post.  I'm sorry for the lapse.

We've been having a great time as we've continued to travel further south down through central (east coast) Florida, which is also called the Treasure Coast.

We went to Cocoa on my birthday and enjoyed a two day stay there in a beautiful anchorage just in front of this beautiful marina and the quaint little town of Cocoa.

 From Cocoa we traveled on down to Vero Beach, which has been nick-named Velcro Beach because all the cruising boaters love it so much that once there you do not want to leave - and it is true!  We ended up staying there almost two weeks!  The marina is great, so is the beach and really great shopping!  They have a free bus system that stops right at the marina office twice each hour - once for a trip to the beach and once for the route that takes you right to all the good shopping.  It was the easiest place to get around that we have visited and that is so nice when you have no car!

Finally, all the snowbirds started catching up to us while at Vero and we met so many nice people from all over the northeast who make this trip south every year!  Many of them will stay in Vero until after Thanksgiving and then wait for a nice weather window to make the crossing of the Gulf Stream and on to the Bahamas for the winter.  Others will go the Keys for the winter and then there are also some who will go through the St. Lucie River, across Lake Okeechobee and on to Fort Myers on the gulf coast.  It's been really interesting to talk to different people who have many years of experience doing this trip and we are learning a lot!

The mooring field at Vero Beach.

Vero Beach

I forgot to write about the manatees that we saw at Titusville.  We have been traveling in Manatee Zones, which basically just restricts power boaters from traveling at high speeds because their propellers are dangerous to the manatee for several weeks now.  We have not really encountered any near our boat while motoring but we sure got a good closeup look at several who hang out around that marina!  They love to drink fresh water - as opposed to saltwater and when we washed our boat one afternoon we had several - I believe we counted five one time coming up around the bottom of our boat to drink the water running off when we rinsed it!  We snapped several pictures but honestly it was difficult to get a really good shot but here are a couple.  They are really ugly creatures!

 Here they are between two boats on our dock.

Once we finally left Vero Beach we made our way on down to Stuart and just before arriving there on Rick's birthday we saw the most beautiful emerald green water!  We were at the St. Lucie inlet and it is the most beautiful water we have seen so far!  It should just keep getting prettier and prettier as we continue going south!

Stuart is a great little town and there was lots going on over the week-end with a reggae concert on the waterfront as well as a farmer's/craft market.  They have revitalized the downtown waterfront section and it is filled with wonderful shops, art galleries, restaurants and bars.  Very nice place to visit!

I may not write much of anything until after Christmas and New Years but I will pick back up after the busyness of the holidays is over.  We will be spending our Thanksgiving with ex-next door neighbors in Youngsville who now live in West Palm Beach!  We are really looking forward to seeing them!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Moving On

As I said - we really enjoyed exploring St. Augustine but after nine days a change of scenery and pace was really instore.  We traveled not too far south to Marineland, which turned out to be not only the dolphin water park but also a very nice marina - both of which are located in the town of Marineland, FL!  Because it was such a nice place we ended up staying there for a week and thoroughly enjoyed it! 

The water park originally opened in 1937 and used to feature performances with the dolphins very much like you now see at Sea World.  Now, it's primarily a place where you can view the dophins through glassed tanks - or oceanariums - or you can pay to interact with them such as feeding or swimming with them.  We didn't actually do any of that but we did spend some time one afternoon observing them in the huge tanks.  They are very entertaining to watch because they like to show off!

One of the things we liked best about this marina was that you can walk right across the street and you're at the beach!  We had fantastic weather the entire week and we spent a lot of time walking and sitting on the beach!  We even found a few pieces of sea glass!

They have great bike paths in this area so we took advantage and rode every morning.  Some it even goes right along the top of the dunes so you can see the ocean as you ride!

They also had a farmer's market every Tuesday morning where we bought some delicious homemade breads and pastries along with fruits and vegetables.

It was a great week and of course some more beautiful sunsets that I cannot resist but then it was time to move on again!

Daytona Beach was our next stop but we only spent one night there because we have been there many times in the past.  I did snap a few pictures as we passed through.

From Daytona we went south through the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge on our way to Titusville.  The refuge is very large and we were in it almost all day!  We saw dolphins the entire way as well as many, many birds.  We also spotted our first mannatee and our first alligator!  I wasn't quick enough to get a picture of either of them but I did make one of these pelicans.

Many of you have visited Kennedy Space Center so you know how huge the building there is - well, we spotted it on the horizon long before we realized what we were actually seeing!  We were looking at it for hours and hours that afternoon and then we anchored and could still see it across the water!

This anchorage was just north of Titusville where we ended up staying in a marina several days due to very high winds.  It was a good place to visit with a beautiful astronaut memorial park and a great space museum!  Here are a few pictures from the park.

Me and President Kennedy!

 John Glenn's handprints.