Oliver Sails South: In Palm Beach

We ended up staying in Cocoa Village Marina longer than expected. Dale ended up replacing the alternator, then rewiring and programming. When we were finally ready to go, the weather turned rainy, windy, foggy and the Intercoastal had quite a chop on it. I did not know waves formed inland like that. Anyway, the marina and the people were really nice. They laughed that it was like the motel where you check in but you cannot check out. I took a grocery run again with some "boat neighbors" and Oliver enjoyed his walks to the town coffee shop and parks. The mail carrier, girls in the coffee shop and local shop owners knew him by name and greeted him daily. He thought this was a great place. It is another city where dogs are welcome to sit at the outside dining area with you.

Finally the fog lifted at 10:00 on the 15th, so we set off with "Cool Hand" right behind us. Luckily we had radar as a fog bank moved in as we had just gotten underway. We made it to an anchorage in Melbourne in plenty of time to set anchors before dark. The next day we anchored in Wabasso. There was suppose to be a dinghy dock at an Environmental Learning Center, but it was too high and had a closed gate at the end. Plan B was a concrete fishing wall under the bridge, again too high. There was a small sandy patch we used. Not the nicest, but it was okay until we had to go at night. It was dark and scary and I kept imagining different critters or local hooligans( from some trash I had seen). Thank goodness Tom and Laura were within screaming distance. We survived and the next night we anchored at Jensen Beach which had a beautiful causeway park and ramp. We split from Cool Hand as they had to pick up a sail getting restitched in Stuart.

The 18th we decided a dock would be nice, so we pulled into the North Palm Beach Marina. It was a tiring day of bridges to be lifted. We made most of them, but one bridge tender decided we only had 30 seconds to make it near enough for him to open the bridge. Since we had a 1/2 mile to go, I said we could not be right at the bridge by then. We would be there by the time it opened though. It takes a good 5-10 minutes to stop traffic on the bridge, then have the bascule bridge open fully before a boat can pass. He must have been having a bad day saying we only had 30 seconds.

Cool Hand has since docked and we are headed to Ft. Lauderdale for Christmas. We planned to leave today, but again, Mother Nature decided to blow in a cold front with wind. Since there are 12 bridges we have to have lifted, holding the boat steady in the waterway is tricky with the wind pushy our back end (stern), especially with a bridge in front of us. We decided to wait until tomorrow. Oliver of course loves it here. There are some large yachts here and many of the captains have met him. We also had a vet appointment while we were here to get Oliver 's health certificate for the Bahamas. It took a couple miles by dinghy and another mile walking to get him there, but we did it. Nothing is easy. The dinghy dock by a lovely anchorage we had planned to go to is under construction, hence the marina and the other route to the vet. Oliver sees it all as a grand adventure. He loves dolphins, pelicans and he keeps looking for the elusive manatees.

Since I opened the blog up for anyone to read, if you sign up as a follower, you may get notice when I post. This is not my forte, so I am not sure.

Merry Christmas to all!