The off shore forecast has not been good recently so we, along with Gatsby, decided to work our way north on the inside on March 28th from Fort Lauderdale to Palm Beach. And so we moved north, motoring at high or low speed, depending on how much time we had to make the next scheduled bridge opening, in an effort to arrive at our chosen Palm Beach anchorage at a decent hour. Most of the 23 Bascule or draw bridges had scheduled openings each hour but about 1/3 would open on request. A certain Bridge etiquette must be followed. We did enjoy this up close view of the homes and boats of the 1 percent as we transited 47 statute miles of the waterway. And the weather on the waterway cooperated.

After a peaceful night on the hook, Sylestial Star, along with Gatsby, retraced yesterday's cruise for 2 1/2 miles and passed under the Flagger Memorial Bridge for a second time and tied up at the new city dock of West Palm Beach. We then taxied to Palm Beach for lunch and a tour of the Flagler Estate, now a national historic landmark and museum. We have encountered Henry Flagler quite a bit during our time in Florida. In addition to his co-founding of Standard Oil with
John D. Rockefeller, he was largely responsible for the late 19th and early20th century creation of the state of Florida as it is today.

Flagler opened the Wilderness with his railroads, high end hotels and resorts,
and other large investments up and down the state's east coast. At one time he rejected the proposed naming of a city as "Flagler" - it was instead named
"Miami". His is an amazing personal rags to riches story and after seeing bits and pieces of it throughout Florida, it was a perfect capstone to visit his Florida estate and see it's story as well.

Palm Beach is the most high end, expensive and preppy community I have ever seen. You can almost smell the money and elitism.

We have returned to near last night's anchorage, dropped the hook and are now tucked in for the night.

Tomorrow we head north to our southern home at Loggerhead in Stuart.