It’s a good thing West Palm Beach is a nice place to hang out, because the wind gods whipped up some 25-30 knot wind days one after another, and what was supposed to be a couple day stop turned into four nights. Once again, Boreas and Once Around were the “little guys” in the harbor. We were sent to the smallest slips, which were sixty footers! One of the big boats, Cherosa, even had it’s own land dinghy! No kidding, this guy carries a Smart Car around with him. Unreal.
Cherosa, with her land dinghy
Poor guy...no Smart Car
Love this boat's name
The marina itself was first class. The finger piers were wider than many main piers in other marinas. The only gripe my First Mate came up with was their laundry facility seemed like an afterthought. I told her it probably was an afterthought; if you have a hundred foot or larger boat you would have a full size washer and dryer, and probably a crew member responsible for doing the laundry as well! She thought about that a while…and seemed to like the idea. I may be in trouble here…
Despite the laundry setback, we and the Boreas crew had a good time wandering around West Palm. They have a free trolley system that takes you around downtown, and we used it to find the City Center Mall as well as the Publix grocery store for provisions. We had a few meals in town including a great meal at the French Bistro.
Damn, we missed our opportunity for trapeze lessons! Maybe next time...
The Admiral and I got a bit of boat crazies the fourth day there and rented a car to run back down to Fort Lauderdale. It seems she had heard about a yacht decorator there that had a barrel chair she had seen on another boat. A few hours later we not only had a chair ordered, but had found a really cool bronze statue of a pelican in flight. You all know how she cracks up at pelicans…so you shouldn’t be surprised she adopted this guy.
Our new pelican
When we got him back to the boat I told her Bonaparte (our Catalina bonefish that hangs over a salon window) looked a bit worried about having a pelican on board, even though he didn’t have much meat on him. She said she noticed that Bonaparte was keeping his eye closely on the new pelican. I couldn’t argue with that…
I still think Bonaparte looks a bit nervous...
We left West Palm on Friday and planned on stopping 30 miles north in Stuart, FL. But considering the weather system coming in the next few days, we decided to go a bit further doing 50 miles and ending up at Harbortown Marina in Fort Pierce for the night. We never left the marina, as they had a pretty good bar and restaurant on site.
About all we saw of Stuart was the lighthouse from the water, and Carrie made it look like the leaning tower...not hard from a moving boat
Oh yeah, we also saw the Stuart paddle wheeler. These always make me think of my RAT brother, Jim...not sure why
Me and the Admiral at Harbortown Marina, Fort Pierce, FL
OK, some of the boats around here are not so fancy...
...but like boaters everywhere, they love to party!
The house of the day
Carrie's dolphin buddies showed up again today, hadn't seen them in a while
Saturday morning we got an early start and almost outran the rainstorms before we got soaked just a few miles from our destination, Melbourne Harbor Marina in Melbourne.
Early morning departures can be gorgeoous
We arrived here just after 1 PM. It looks like a nice little town and the marina people accommodated me with a separate little slip for our dinghy, right next to our slip. What more could a guy want, right?
A VIP spot for the dinghy
Stern to stern with our buddies on Boreas
My two beautiful girls
No comments:
Post a Comment