Monday April 4: Serenity Island

We are continuing to move up the coast of Florida. Seems like we've gone a long way already - and then I made the mistake of pulling up a map of the entire eastern coast of the US.

I think I'm remembering why it is that we decided bringing this boat north during the summers is such a long way!!

But we're not really in a rush and we're looking forward to re-seeing many of the places we've been and other places that we had to bypass the last time north due to lack of time.

The morning we left Delray was really enjoyable - we decided to be smart and get up and ride to the beach while it was still a decent temperature: 75 degrees and sunny.

It was such a nice day! Off to the only "waterside" place that served breakfast and opened at 7 am.

Ok - so it was located within sight of the ocean - if you looked really hard! But closer than any other place so it worked for us.

Steve was very happy with his corned beef/pastrami omelet :-) Turned out to be his lunch as well - crazy huge.

Walked across the street to a very nice beach area.Very typical Florida beach: sand and waves for as far as you could see.



The beach was FULL of these jellyfish that the lifeguard told Steve are called 'sailors of the sea'. Not dangerous so it was ok to touch and pick them up. millions of them!

The ones that will sting you - even if they are on the beach and appear to be 'dead' are the Portuguese man o'war. Saw some of them as well.

Apparently it's something that happens every three years or so. Weird.

Anyway, we headed back to the boat - passing through what Delray has named their historic Marina District (click on the picture to see a larger version).

The homes were interesting - definitely reminiscent of what Florida used to be like, I'm sure.

Kind of nice that the city has made an effort to maintain this little area.

That was Saturday morning. The  day turned out to be pretty pleasant but it was a long day. More bridges. Plenty of company on the waterways.

Saw this old wooden boat in really great shape. Again an effort by someone to maintain and keep what is quickly becoming a relic.

And I have to say, these Florida cities do like their bridges to look cool as well as being functional!

Love the one over Ocean Blvd - not only because it's fun looking but we can fit under it! If you look closely you can see a number on what is called the water board.

It is reading '23 feet' - which is the distance from the water level to the lowest part of the steel on the bridge. It is usually the case that there is 3 or 4 additional feet of clearance when the bridge has a slight arch to it. This one did not!

We just fit with a requirement of 21.3 feet for our mast to clear.

Peanut Island

We passed Peanut Island near Lake Worth. It's always a popular spot on a nice weekend day.

Anchorage at the north end of Lake Worth

After spending the night anchored on Lake Worth, we woke to north winds and much cooler temperatures - which was fine with us! The clouds stayed most of the day - along with winds of 15 - 20 mph. I really do like that flybridge plastic. Add 8 mph boat moving north to 15 - 20 mph winds blowing south and it adds up to NO FUN!.

It was another long day but we made it to Ft. Pierce for the night on Sunday.

The city has really made an effort to have a great space by the marina. Saturdays are a farmer's market. Other days are music gatherings - seems to always be something.

We met some friends there - Kathy and Werner from It's About Time. We hadn't seen then for a couple of years so it was fun going to breakfast and catching up.

Later today Banana Bay friends Paul and Collen from Gra Mor caught up to us. We left Banana Bay on Monday, they left Friday.

We must be travel wimps :-) Took us 7 1/2 days to travel the distance they traveled in 3 1/2 days!

In all fairness, their cruising speed is 10 mph and we only go 8 mph .... and we don't travel as far in a day ...... and they don't stay for more than one night. At least not yet - who knows maybe we'll catch back up!

Anchored on a beautiful evening at Serenity Island - one of our usual stops.

Fishing pole in the water - two seconds later; a catfish.

Away went the fishing pole. Don't think that was what Steve had in mind :-)

Friday April 1: Delray Beach

Traveling through the Miami area is so different than traveling through the Upper Keys - following along the border of the Florida Everglades.

Instead of the waterways lined with mangroves and small islands, we spent the last couple of days boating past huge boats and very tall condo buildings.

The clouds and threats of rain were still around when we left our anchorage Wednesday morning. The rain held off - until we were just turning into the Hollywood Marina and then it finally decided to rain on us!

No problem as we had the flybridge enclosure up. We thought that if we bothered putting it up, the rain wouldn't come. Somehow that thinking never works!

A ride to the beach is always in order when in Hollywood and this was no exception. Breakfast out on Thursday as the winds let up and the rain never showed up.

Steve took a longer-than-remember ride to the grocery stores. Not bad coming back but a killer riding into the still rather strong south winds.

By this morning, the sun had returned  - it was going to be a good day to travel what we thought would be a quick 32 mile day to Delray Beach. We stayed here three year ago and have been wanting to come back but the marina really has no transient docking unless one of the long term lease owners has his/her boat out for the night. It's very hit or miss to snag a dock for a night.

Quick 32 miles? What were we thinking - of course we WEREN'T thinking. Lost track of how many bridges we had to go under (many we fit under with our 22 ft air draft) but many we didn't.

Things were going quite well until I made the mistake of misjudging that we couldn't get to the next bridge fast enough when it turns out we could have made it. Cost in time; 20 minutes at that bridge and 25 minutes at the next bridge.

Won't do that again ....

The views along the way are great. Many very tastefully done large homes and some just kind of "what were they thinking?"

And oh the boats - sorry. Yachts. One larger than the next. But only one helicopter this years. Must have been a bad year for the owners .....

Helicopter on aft deck!

Loved the one with a fleet of four jet skies on the upper deck!

We finally pulled into our dock about 3:30. Too hot to really even want to get off and bike around.

Steve did take a walking tour of the area. Tomorrow morning we'll bike to the ocean side to see what we can find for breakfast and then head out.

The plan is to anchor at the north end of Lake Worth. We've been there before and it's a great place to spend the night.






Best boat today: the one that just cranks itself up out of the water! No wake issues for this guy :-)

Tuesday March 29: Miami!

It's been a good two days of travel. Light winds, partly cloudy and smooth waters.

Sixty miles to Barnes Sound and then an additional fifty miles to an anchorage just north of Miami.

We left Banana Bay around 9 yesterday morning. It's always nice when the friends around come to see us off - complete with hugs and goodbye's until next year (although we hope to see several on the way north or once in the north!).

It really was a nice day to travel with the light south winds just off the bow.

It was nice being back in a travel mode even though it was a long couple of first days.

The dolphins are back!! First time in a while that they have come to the bow wave. Two this time - staying for just a few minutes. I think they get bored because we don't travel very fast!

The usual sights along the way - complete with the cormorants lining the cuts through the shallow areas. Each has it's own little perch,

Not sure what these stakes are for but the birds sure do like them!

And they also love boats which are sitting on sand bars :-) I think this boat has been there for quite some time ....

So we anchored last night in Barnes Sound - just north of the Jewfish Creek Bridge.

You know - go past the entrance marker, make a right turn and drop the anchor (the red dot on picture left). Perfect. Not a boat for miles!

And then there was. After dark. I'm hearing a boat - why does it sound so close? Are the pirates arriving? I see a bright light. And then I hear an anchor chain being dropped. REALLY?? There must be a gazillion miles of open water for a place to anchor. Does this guy really need to anchor 50 yards from us?

Very strange but I guess they thought since we were anchored and holding it must be a good place to be!



At least we had a quiet time before being invaded. While we were traveling, Steve had made deviled eggs for an appetizer so on the flybridge with wine and eggs. Seems like a strange combination but it was quite good!

My camera is still stuck on the "smile detection" setting and just takes a picture itself when it "sees" that someone is smiling. Makes for some funny pictures but wouldn't let me do a timed pic. One of these days I need to get the book out for that camera ....




The storm clouds went around us last night and the wind died down. Quite a pleasant night - except for worrying about the pirates anchored next to us.

Kept waiting to be boarded in the middle of the night ....

In the morning when we could actually see the boat, it turns out it was a trawler that was sitting at the dock at one of the marina's in Jewfish Creek. Glad it wasn't really pirates :-)

The farther north we went today on Biscayne Bay the more we were reminded that we were approaching big boat country.

This cruiser buzzed by us - seems he was traveling at least 20 mph. Beautiful boat - almost no wake.

Small by comparison of what we'll see the next few days though.

Miami skyline

Eventually Miami came into view along with the storms that seemed to be moving east at leisurely speed. Good for us as we were able to keep ahead of them.

There were some really fun cloud formations though and we were fortunate enough to make it to our anchorage before the storms moved in.

Turns out the weather was a non-issue. Some wind but no major blows or rains









We had anchored in a very protected cove just west of the very popular sand bar by Haulover Canal in North Miami.

Perfect :-)

Tomorrow: on to Hollywood for a couple of days. One of our favorite marinas!

Sunday March 27: Time to Head North

It is definitely time to move north. Every day is now in the mid to high 80's with high humidity. Where did the winds go that we complained about just a short time ago?!

The Easter Bunny did show up here in Banana Bay despite the heat though. I'm thinking the chocolate bunny needs to be in the fridge :-)

But there really was an Easter Bunny (and it wasn't Steve) that brought an egg full of chocolate and toffee goodies. Steve found the egg sitting outside our door this morning.

After some sleuthing around we have determined the identity of the mystery bunny - one of the boaters in the marina was up early and left the eggs on the boats around the marina.

Fun to find and just yet another indication of what great folks are at this marina!







So it's time to leave - tomorrow around 9 am. We'll be in and out of the Miami/Ft. Lauderdale area before the weekend . No one in their right mind travels through that area over a weekend - it is SO crazy with boaters zipping around.

The last few jobs are getting done before we leave. There has been more under the floor work - mostly for Steve.

One thing he's been wanting to do is paint the airconditioner. With the generator out it's a much easier job that ever.

Safety Matt: please note the fume filtering mask Steve is wearing as he does the sanding and painting!

Looks MUCH better!!

The other project involved painting the pontoon furniture that has been on the flybridge for 10 years now.

It has held up fairly well and really just needs replaced but we were too slow in actually deciding to do just that. Plus it was a no brainer of a decision once we found out the company would ship the pieces for free!

So until we are back here next year, we invested in $25 worth of spray paint for vinyl.


With paint in hand and a couple of large boxes from Amazon, we started spraying. It's taken me a while to really do this. Kind of afraid of the outcome!

Mmmm... not looking too bad -

So we kept going .....

Not sure how well the paint will hold up - who knows maybe it'll start flaking off the first time it's used!

In the meantime, it looks way better than it did with the poorly chosen glue where the original seams were pulling apart!

Last minute electrical work and engine work completed today. Relax at docktails and then off tomorrow sometime around 9 or so.









And one last celebration with Nancy and George and Andi and Mike (on Two Hearts) with a festive Easter cake designed and made by Nancy and Andi!

A perfect ending to our 3 month stay here at Banana Bay!

One last look from the flybridge ......