I will be decommissioning this blog. Here is my new blog:

www.alpenglow38.blogspot.com

Work work work work work ! That was the plan, so here we are at Cooley's marina doing boat projects but mostly shopping for parts and provisioning before our US departure. Not to mention loads of laundry & cleaning the boat.

My cousin Irene lives in Pompano Beach part of the time. Tim & I had a wonderful time with her and her husband & mother. We laughed, ate and drank way too much.

Our boat buddies Al & Brenda on s/v Haven arrived a few days after us. We had a delicious US Thanksgiving dinner with them at the Sea Watch restaurant. Our other buddies Krista & Phil on s/v Harmonium will be arriving this week-end.

There doesn't seem to be a good weather window anytime soon to cross to the Bahamas unfortunately. We will be discussing our plans with our buddies and hope to cross with them sooner than later.

We went down the ICW to Lake worth. We sailed most of the way downwind reaching 9 knots. YEAH ! we were flying in the ICW. In total, this trip was 59 miles. We missed one of the bridge openings so we got to the anchorage as it was getting dark (5:30pm). It was a long day but a very enjoyable one. We only stayed here the night at Lake Worth.

The very next day, we sailed offshore from Lake Worth to Lake Sylvia in Ft. Lauderdale. The waves about 5-10 feet at every 8 seconds on the aft quarter. Winds were at 15 knots gusting to 25. At first, the waves were rocking our boat in a very uncomfortable manner but soon we fell off a wee bit and it was more tolerable.

Upon reaching Lake Sylvia there was a 41' catamaran that was following us and decided to set his anchor right in front of us and over our anchor. Really ? Normally, a boat behind should wait to see where the boat in front will anchor then anchor himself at a good distance. I guess he was in a hurry.

The next day, he moved enough for us to pull our anchor and off we went to Cooley's Landing Marina on the New River.

We took the ICW from Melbourne to Vero Beach, Florida. Very light wind so we could only sail a little bit.

Now we know why Vero Beach is nicknamed "Velcro" beach. It's a very practical and beautiful place to be. The beach is only 1/4 mile away and there are free buses to every imaginable store. The marina only has a few moorings so it is expected to raft up with other boats. There were 3 Island Packets rafted up next to us;

Here we met many cruisers and had a fun happy hour with cruisers playing the guitar.


On the day before we left, Brenda & Al on "Haven" showed up. What a surprise ! We sailed with them last year in the Bahamas. We had a most wonderful reunion. Brenda had made home made bread which warmed up their boat (it was cold & rainy outside). We drank wine & Rum while eating warm bread with cheese & shared our plans for the future. They will be having Thanksgiving with us in Fort Lauderdale and most likely we will be sailing with them to the Bahamas. Brenda & Al are from Comox, BC. One day, they wish to visit us in Dillon & they invited us to Comox. We will definitely take them up on this one day.

Melbourne is only 15 miles from Cocoa Village. We stopped here because Prue & Burt on "Exuberant" told us that there was a Seven Seas Cruising Association gathering called a "GAM". We had never hear of this association before. Prue was able to get us tickets to get in which are normally only for people who are part of the association. Judy, an organizer welcomed us with open arms and invited us to participate in all the seminars.

We participated in a demonstration of a life raft being deployed. It so happens that it was the same life raft that we have. I was given the opportunity to sit in the life raft with 5 other people (our life raft holds 6 people). It was very cramped indeed. I hope to never, ever have to use our life raft.

We were very impressed with this association and joined.

From Saint Augustine we went offshore towards the Cape Canaveral inlet. Unfortunately, they were not launching any rockets.

We only spent enough time here to walk to the Key Lime Pie company. Yup, it's well worth it!

Last year, this is where I met up with an old friend of mine from Australia. We hadn't seen each other in about 30 years.