The plan today is to travel as far as Hobe Sound where there is supposed to be a good anchorage. It will put us half way to Lantana where the marina is where we plan to leave Light Reach for a month. We will be traveling a distance of about 30 nautical miles which at 5 knots would take us 6 hours. One nice thing about being in the southern latitudes is we get a bit more daylight. Leaving at 8:30 AM should give us plenty of time to get the anchor down before dark. We slipped the dock lines and were on our way today would be strictly motoring in the ditch. I assumed the bird dog position looking for marks and Scott took the helm. The CSO sleeps next to the helmsman after all she has been on duty all night! Traffic on the ditch was light as we headed out. We would need to transverse the Ft Pierce and St Lucie inlets today. Inlets are a problem on the ICW as the areas where the ditch crosses the Inlets tend to shoal. Ft Pierce is not bad as it is a commercial inlet and is regularly maintained. St Lucie not so much, which begs the question why?? It is clear coming down the intercoastal that the marine industry is huge. I cannot fathom the amount of revenue the industry generates. We have seen multiple and I mean in the hundreds of yachts in the million dollar range many in the multi million range. These yachts all require fuel, maintenance and certainly tax dollars on a grand scale. We have seen people fill their yacht's fuel tank with bills greater than 4000 dollars. Figures that make you gasp and thank the Lord you are on a sail boat. There are crews dedicated to strictly keeping a boat pristine for an absentee owner, and some ordinary folks in sailboats and trawlers who eat dinner in restaurants, buy provisions at the local grocery and pay admission at the local attractions. Shouldn't that industry deserve to have the facilities maintained? It boggles my mind but worse it gives my husband adjada when we transverse these inlets and that is what really pisses me off. The St. Lucie inlet did give us pause as we went through seeing 5.5 at one point in a boat that draws 5.0 just before the Peck Lake section of the waterway. Interestingly enough just as we passed through the inlet the TowBoatUS was sitting on the side of the waterway. Coincidence? I think not... The rest of the day was uneventful with us concentrated on keeping the boat in the narrow channel of deeper water deep being 12 ft or less. The waterway may look wide in spots but the navigable channel is surprisingly narrow and only a 100 ft in many places to stray, is to run aground. There is plenty of current to contend with as well. At least the tides were moderate in the one to two foot range. We passed under some bridges and power lines which are kind of scary and had one opening bridge that we had to clear. The Hobe Sound bridge opens on demand and the kind bridge tender let us and another boat through without delay. The anchorage turned out to be delightful, wide and open with only two other boats in it when we arrived. We had no trouble setting the hook and getting Light Reach settled for the night. There was no shore access for the Schnauzer and our attempts at boat dog training still remain futile. Since we were on the hook and the temperatures were moderate we could grill!! Yippee so steaks on the barbie were on the menu. A good dinner was had and after a bit of reading we all headed off to our berths. The picture is of another boat sharing the anchorage with us in Hobe Sound.