Going Home

Well we hired a golf cart and had a good look around which took the best part of a couple of hours. turns out some of the best scenery is over the hill about 300 metres from where we are in the Marina. we took some drinks across to the beach at sunset and sat and toasted the sunset with some snacks. This place is... well it is hard to find new words to describe these places we are visiting. they are some of the most spectacular places and the nicest people around. we had a knock on the boat this morning and bought a dozen crayfish for 50 bucks. it was Garlic Crayfish for dinner and crayfish sandwiches the next day for lunch, we still have some in the freezer still. We cleared Customs and Immigration in the afternoon and the next morning headed out early to cross to Florida. With little to no wind and glassy seas we made the 70 mile jump north west to Palm Beach through the Lake Worth Inlet. anchoring overnight just inside the inlet saw us off to US Customs and Border Protection in the morning to check in. Arriving at a little before 10am we were expecting to be on our way quite quickly. well this was not to be so. a little over 3 hours later and we emerged wondering what had taken so long. all we had to do was present the papers and get a cruising permit and stamp the passports.
We got back onboard and moved the boat up Lake Worth to North Palm Beach and unknowingly dropped the hook right outside Jack Nicklaus's house which fronts the lake. there were a lot of nice houses around so it was hard to tell who was who. a quick spot of lunch and we were off exploring, first thing on the list was a US phone SIM so we could get back online. we don't realise just how much we depend on being connected to just do the basic stuff. I had to organise to drop an engine part off to a guy from Stuart. we had bought the part and had it shipped down to St Martin and it turned out to be wrongly identified and would not fit our motor. there was the usual banking and of course facebook cant possibly survive without Mezz (and me as well really) posting stuff.
Well the Sim is sorted and we are online with a magnificent amount of data to share between ourselves. we decided to head out for dinner as it was our 32nd wedding anniversary and had a magnificent meal in West Palm Beach. picked up some groceries and back to the boat.
This morning before beginning our northward journey up the ICW we did a quick visit to West Marine and picked up a joker valve for the toilet. for those who know what that is will know the job ahead of me. if will not describe it for the rest.....
we purchased a couple of fittings and some hose to modify the shower on one side to be diverted into the holding tank. there are some "no discharge" zones around and at the moment the grey water from the showers goes directly overboard via the bilge pump hose and we need to divert one of them to go into a holding tank. that will allow us to use one of the showers in those areas.
There were also a couple of blue strip LED's purchased and now we have a lovely blue hue about the boat.
With the shopping out of the way we weighed anchor and headed north. i think there were 5 or 6 bascule bridges to negotiate and a couple of fixed bridges of over 65 feet. our mast is 58'6" which Mick and I measured in St Martin and then made a label up for the Nav station so we wouldn't forget. each Bascule Bridge encounter on the waterway consisted of a call to the bridge tender to log our intent to pass at their next opening they were timed well so that one opened on the hour and half hour and the next one opened on the quarter past and quarter to. as long as we could maintain a reasonable speed we were able to get through without a huge delay. we settled into cruising the waterway stopping for lunch in a wider area out of the main channel. we arrived in Port St Lucie in the town of Stuart and dropped the anchor for the night just off the waterway and have arranged to drop off the engine part first thing in the morning and then we will be on our way again. We were hoping to be stopping around Port Canaveral tomorrow night and would love to fit in a Kennedy Space Center tour.