After a quiet night at anchor, I got up at sunrise, prepared the boat for more open-ocean sailing and raised the anchor......by hand, of course.... grumble grumble grumble.... OK, I'll quit griping after I point out that raising a 45 pound plow anchor with all-chain rode by hand is not something you do for fun!

Anyway, I went back out through The Cape Florida Channel and headed N/E into the open Atlantic. The winds were still brisk but they had moved enough that I could sail. After passing outside of Government Cut into Miami, and dodging the huge comercial vessels coming in and out, I took note of my speed and decided to bypass Port Everglades Inlet and Fort Lauderdale, and continue on to Lake Worth Inlet and Palm Beach.

This made for a long day but a very fast and pleasant run. In doing this I was able to bypass about 28 opening bridges on time-restricted schedules and get to my destination a whole day earlier than anticipated.

For those of you who have never travelled on the ICW in South Florida, its hard to convey what missing all of those bridges really means. For some reason, the bridge tenders in this area seem to regard their bridge as their own litttle fifedom and they seem to really enjoy being a total snot-rocket to the boaters.

If you're hurrying to catch a scheduled opening, their watch always seems to be a little fast. "Sorry pal, you missed the scheduled opening so sit there and tread water for the next hour until the next one! BWaahahahahhahha" But if you're sitting there waiting for the bridge to open, their watch always seems to be slow or there's pedestrian traffic, or Oprah is on.... It seems that anyting can delay a bridges opening except a boater, trying to make the opening..

Anyway, I made it all the way to the Lake Worth inlet and entered with no problems. The last time I came into that inlet was when I returned from the Bahamas in '09 and I was greated by a severe thunderstorm. This time, the weather and conditions were excellent and I got into my slip at North Palm Beach Marina just before they closed for the day. Ahhhhh......

And, nothing broke today. (shhhhhhhhhh) Here's a picture of the Miami Beach Shoreline as viewed from the stern of the Norma Fay.