Dan & Pam in Minnesota - this blog is for you.

Still in Telemar Bay Marina, waiting for Bill to return so we can get the heck out of here. Almost a month here and I am definitely ready to get going again. The plan is to leave bright and early Monday morning and head to either Vero Beach or Fort Pierce. I have lined up a guy in Fort Pierce to come to the boat to empty the fuel tank, clean the tank then clean the diesel and put it back in. Hopefully this will take care of the growth that is supposedly taking place in the tank. Definitely something we didn't need to worry about back on Lake Superior.

Varnish work is progressing very slowly. I haven't been able to work on it for the last several days due to the cold temps. I have been keeping busy sewing an enclosure for the cockpit. We already had a screen enclosure but I am making a plastic enclosure for rainy and chilly days. Bill went to our storage in Minnesota and mailed our Buddy Heater to me here. With the Buddy Heater in the cockpit we can keep our tootsies warm while underway. Never thought we would need to have all these cold weather protections on the boat here in Warm Sunny Florida!!

I have a very tentative itinerary for getting from here to Key West. As all Cruisers soon discover the itinerary will be changed many, many times to fit the immediate needs/wants.

So, here is the plan:


LOCATION # MILES BETWEEN STOPS DATE
VERO BEACH MOORING 38 12/20
PORT PIERCE CITY MARINA 13 12/21
HOOKER COVE ANCHORAGE 20 12/22
NORTH LAKE WORTH ANCHORAGE 42 12/23
FORT LAUDERDALE MARINA 37 12/24 & 12/25
NONAME HARBOR ANCHORAGE 45 12/26
PUMPKIN KEY ANCHORAGE 25 12/27
RODRIGUEZ KEY ANCHORAGE 25 12/28
MARATHON MOORING 20 12/29 to 12/31
BAHIA HONDA KEY ANCHORAGE 40 1/1
KEY WEST MOORING 40 1/2

The main factor, other than weather, to actually being able to get to each location within a day are the bridges. There are 31 bridges between Hooker Cove and Fort Lauderdale. All bascule or lift bridges. Some are 'on demand' but most are on the hour and half hour or some variation of that. With about 10 bridges to get through each day we may end up going out to the ocean instead of the ICW, that is dependent on weather and which inlets we can get in the out of.

Expected high of 75 degrees today............it's a heat wave!!